Alessandro Michele and Emanuele Coccia
Dear Shaded Viewers,
On May 21 Paris played host to a singular literary event: the French launch of La Vie des formes (The Life of Forms) by Alessandro Michele and Emanuele Coccia. Held at the Italian Cultural Institute, the evening was more than a mere book launch—it was a celebration of the fertile dialogue between fashion and philosophy, a testament to the city’s enduring role as a crucible for cultural reinvention.
The book, a philosophical essay co-authored by Michele—visionary designer and now creative director at Valentino—and Coccia, an acclaimed Italian philosopher, is the fruit of years of conversation and introspection. Their collaboration, born during the pandemic, is described by Michele as both “intense and personal,” akin to a therapeutic process that helped him reorder his priorities and clarify his creative vision. The result is a text that refuses the boundaries between disciplines, weaving together autobiography, theory, and poetic reflection.
La Vie des formes positions fashion not as a frivolous afterthought but as a vital language for living—a medium through which we redraw our identities and experiment with freedom. As Coccia and Michele argue, the forms we wear are not mere surfaces; they are amulets, “tools for inventing and experiencing new liberties: the freedom to resurrect possibilities, to construct unprecedented meanings, to choose what we want to be”. This philosophy of “re-enchantment” challenges the market-driven imperatives and relentless reinvention that dominate the fashion industry, proposing instead that fashion can—and should—be a bridge between art and life, the visible and the invisible.
The Paris launch was imbued with symbolism. In the very room where Napoleon once met Madame de Staël, Michele and Coccia presented their book, continuing a tradition of intellectual exchange that defines the city. Michele, known for infusing his Gucci collections with philosophical citations, reiterated his belief that “fashion is the natural language of philosophy.” Coccia, for his part, invoked Walter Benjamin to explain why fashion, unlike traditional art, is lived and inhabited, rather than merely contemplated.
What makes La Vie des formes so resonant is its refusal to see fashion as static or superficial. Instead, it treats garments as “shamanic uniforms”—objects that accumulate life, facilitate encounters between worlds, and allow us to inhabit multiple, fluid identities. The book is structured in poetic “stanzas” rather than chapters, with a layout inspired by ecclesiastical manuscripts, complete with marginal glosses and calligrams—an aesthetic nod to the past, yet wholly contemporary in its ambition.
The Parisian audience responded with enthusiasm, recognizing in Michele and Coccia’s work a rare blend of audacity and depth. By elevating fashion to the status of a philosophical practice, La Vie des formes reclaims the discipline’s power to enchant, to question, and ultimately to transform. In a city where art and thought have always danced together, this book stands as both a manifesto and an invitation—to see, to feel, and to live otherwise.
La Vie des formes is not just a book launch; it is a call to re-enchant the world, one form at a time.
You can purchase the book:
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Librairie Delamain
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Librairie Dialogues
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Librairie Gallimard
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Librairie Hall du livre
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Librairie Kléber
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Librairie Le Divan
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Librairie Mollat
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Librairie Ombres Blanches
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Librairie de Paris
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Librairie Sauramps1
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Cultura.com
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Decitre
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Fnac.com
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Amazon
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E.Leclerc
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Editions Flammarion’s official website
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The book is available for online purchase with 24-hour delivery on stock.
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Title: La vie des formes. Philosophie du réenchantement
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Authors: Alessandro Michele & Emanuele Coccia
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Publisher: Flammarion
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ISBN: 978-2-08-046140-7
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Price: 28,00 €
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