Gucci's Urban​ Garden

Fashion alchemist Alessandro Michele brings his whimsical take on luxury to the fragrance counter (and Times Square), with help from Dakota Johnson, Hari Nef, and Petra Collins

- Belinda McKeon

WHEN ALESSANDRO MICHELE and I meet at his hotel in New York’s SoHo, after what has already been a long workday for him, he tells me that he almost added another layer to the day: On the way here, his people had to talk him out of taking a detour to de Vera, one of the many antiques stores he knows and adores in the city. “I mean, if you are a collector,” he says, “you find things everywhere. Also, if you go outside just to the pharmacy, you come back with something. It’s like you are a prisoner inside a bit of a dream. If I have one minute, I take my iPad and I spy everywhere.”

Michele is a magpie. Witness his Instagram feed, which regularly features object tableaux from his home in Rome; he voraciously gathers the artifacts of other centuries, be they Renaissance altar frontals, 1960s Adidas kicks, or Belle Époque porcelain cockatoos. He paints a picture of himself that any collector will recognise: Sitting in bed late at night, buying piece after piece, click after click, unable to stop (“it’s dangerous”), but seeing his finds as rescues. “Because otherwise they’re thrown away or forgotten; they don’t know how precious they are. And I really hear their voice. And when they come home, it’s like they have arrived in a hospital, where I can take care.”

This creates a certain aura. “My boyfriend always says, ‘Oh, there is a really strong smell of old in here,’” Michele says with a laugh. “I always say, ‘You can really smell the dead and the things that have happened, and what is happening now.’”