“When I first met him, we both just started talking about the Renaissance, and about memento mori jewelry—he is a total kindred spirit!” Florence Welch declares, describing her initial encounter with Alessandro Michele, the creative director for Gucci.
Welch has just been named Gucci’s ambassador for watches and jewelry, and the pairing couldn’t be more felicitous. “Alessandro told me he made a lot of his collection listening to ‘What Kind of Man,’ ” the Grammy-nominated artist relates by phone from L.A., where she is getting ready for Grammy night.
The two almost didn’t meet at all. There was some confusion about the address of their rendezvous, and they actually passed each other on the street before it was straightened out. “We were admiring each other’s outfits from afar,” Welch chuckles. “He looks like a Shakespearean prince, and I was wearing a waistcoat with pompoms and big red flares.”
But the magpies finally found themselves in the same nest, where they discussed each other’s jewelry—both are serious ring wearers and collectors—and have what Welch describes as a shared “baroque psychedelic sensibility.”
So when Gucci asked her if she wanted to be the face, so to speak, of Michele’s latest creations, she didn’t have to think twice. “I was quite honored. I love the pieces he’s making—the bees, the flora, the Marché des Merveilles collection—it has a vintage feel. I’m obsessed with the gold snake ring with the star in its head and the tiger with emerald eyes. My godmother had a vintage ring with a tiger, and I was also drawn to that one.”
Kindred spirits, indeed: Welch confesses that Michele’s fondness for stars, hearts, crosses, and snakes “looks just like what I doodle in my notebooks. I love the way he uses them in his work—not overly sweet but slightly dark. For something to really draw me, it needs to have that slight element of darkness.”
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