Tour de Force

GUCCI BRINGS A BOLD, ROMANTIC AESTHETIC TO ITS HIGH JEWELLERY COLLECTION WITH THE RELEASE OF THE THIRD COLLECTION OF HORTUS DELICIARUM

- RENEE BATCHELOR

Gucci's high jewellery collection Hortus Deliciarum ("garden of delights" in Latin) can mean a lot of things - a nod perhaps to the myriad of references that creative director Alessandro Michele typically employs in his rich, textured collections. It is also the name of a mediaeval manuscript compiled by a nun named Herrad of Landsberg. This illuminated encyclopaedia was filled with poems, coloured illustrations. music and text a kind of compendium of knowledge at the time. Perhaps the idea of it was the source of inspiration for Michele's wide-ranging jewellery collection - the first and second chapters of his Hortus Deliciarum reference the animal kingdom as well as the majesty of nature.

This third collection is based on the idea of an imaginary Grand Tour. Inspired by the far-flung travels of artists, scholars, and thinkers as they embarked on a search for knowledge and beauty over two centuries ago, the collection highlights places of wonder and specific historical and architectural eras that are suspended in time and space, and immortalises them now in high jewellery. The result is romantic, maximalist jewellery dripping in glamour and ripe with symbolism and memory. With rich coloured gemstones combined with diamonds and even architectural motifs or landscapes as centrepieces, these eye-popping jewels are certainly not for wallflowers.

By blending different cultures and restoring the splendour of rarities, the pieces are like memories of travels that are distilled into beautiful objects. The jewellery here combines the past and the present in order to evoke a multi-faceted modernity. With inspiration starting from the mid19th century and continuing to the 1970s, the collection creates a journey that is suspended in time, what the brand dubs a "memory of memories".