That Alessandro Michele had the verve of a writer was already evident from his show notes back in the days of Gucci, sometimes lengthy enough to fill entire pages, and a soup of terms borrowed from the most academic philosophical vocabulary available. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Michele, now at the helm of Valentino, has co-authored a book, along with philosopher Emanuele Coccia, titled La vita delle forme. Filosofia del reincanto and published by HarperCollins, which will be released on May 7th and will explore the complex relationship between individuals, objects, and images, revealing truths often hidden beneath the surface of daily experiences. The project was announced in 2022, following a series of lectures given by Coccia on Michele himself; it was supposed to come out last year, but Michele’s work situation surely delayed its publication.
Starting from Michele’s career, the book should discuss, echoing HarperCollins’ announcement two years ago, “how two forms of creativity and human knowledge traditionally separated, philosophy and fashion, are actually inseparably linked: if fashion can detonate centuries of art and knowledge into a daily experience inherent to every human being, philosophy cannot help but become, itself, a form of fashion.” Already from the cover and the title, one perceives an aesthetic indebted to nineteenth-century publishing; in a preview shared by Coccia, it’s noted that instead of the term “chapters,” the book uses the poetic term “stanzas”, while according to some anonymous sources, the book could feature a graphic layout inspired by ecclesiastical books with marginal glosses instead of footnotes and also calligrams, somewhat akin to Robert Greene’s cult book from 1998, The 48 Laws of Power.