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The exhibition will include two new rooms thought out by De Sarno with Es Devlin and Maria Luisa Frisa.

LONDON — Two medium-sized white octagonal domes resembling the dome of the Florentine cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore have arrived outside 180 Studios at 180 The Strand in London as part of Gucci’s immersive exhibition “Gucci Cosmos,” which made its debut in Shanghai in April.

The timing of the exhibition was a tricky one — it was post Alessandro Michele’s exit in November 2022, but pre new creative director Sabato De Sarno’s first collection, which was shown last month at Milan Fashion Week.

Still, the show must go on and it did, but it’s in London that it’s regrouping and restarting the process with a touched-up appearance and new concepts that take into consideration De Sarno’s vision.

The exhibition and domes outside the building will stay put until Dec. 31, when the show will end.

“Gucci Cosmos” has been a collaboration process between British artist Es Devlin and Italian fashion theorist and critic Maria Luisa Frisa, who has curated a selection of images, objects and illustrations that tell the story of the brand’s 102 years of craftsmanship within fashion and the wider culture.

The rooms inside the exhibition touch upon the key moments that have made Gucci a household name; revisits the brand’s colorful archive with nuggets of nuances dotted around each corner and inside each drawer, and dives into what an Anglophile its founder Guccio Gucci was.

The London iteration will include two new rooms thought out by De Sarno with Devlin.

The journey into the Gucci Cosmos starts inside the famed lobby of the luxury hotel The Savoy, where Guccio Gucci worked as a luggage porter. His observations of guests coming in and out with their exquisite luggage is what inspired him to start an artisanal luggage atelier in 1921.

In 2021, the hotel collaborated with Gucci on the transformation of the Royal Suite, featuring pieces from the Gucci Décor line: wallpaper with the brand’s double G logo; monogrammed cushions; scented candles, and more.

The Savoy has always been at the forefront of modernity, as it was one of the first hotels in the U.K. to have electric elevators, en-suite bathrooms, and to be lit by electricity, which have all been translated into the exhibition.

Guests will be welcomed by a café offering red-colored beverages and snacks.

The lobby leads into a red room, a new addition to “Gucci Cosmos” replicating the elevator of The Savoy with six backless vanity chairs seated under mirrors that turn into a screen that plays a video for seven minutes, the same time that it took the elevator to go up and down during Gucci’s time at the hotel.

The voice in the elevator is Devlin’s, retelling the story of the elevator.

“I started to imagine this 18-year-old intern [Gucci] and what he would do with the guests. When he had rather competent travelers, he would probably talk to them and start finding out about their country pursuits, their horses, cars and country houses. And when they were nervous, he’s not to meet their gaze, so he was probably looking at the detail of their luggage, the stitching, the materiality and polish, and how each piece of luggage and bag came to be,” said Devlin in a preview interview.

Out of the elevator, a spiral staircase awaits for the third section, “Portals,” modeled after the baggage claim area in an airport with a circular conveyor belt installation showcasing Gucci’s luggage history, as well as its lifestyle arms, such as monogrammed tennis and golf bags from the ‘70s.

A few of the suitcases have an interactive element to them with pop-outs and moving images coming out from within. Unlike the Shanghai exhibition, the suitcases are plain white and clay-like to emphasize a new vision, a cleanser palette almost.

Exiting “Portals” is a wooden hallway plastered with the history of Gucci, from Tom Ford’s tenure to Frida Giannini, Alessandro Michele and De Sarno.

On the way to the rooms “Eden” and “Zoetrope,” two paths await, one focused on Gucci’s signature floral motifs and the other on its equestrian roots.

“Eden” is an intimate, low-ceilinged room with plants and animals coming off the wall in white paint. The space traces how Italian artist and illustrator Vittorio Accornero de Testa’s floral design featuring 43 varieties of flowers, insects and plants with 37 colors, commissioned by Rodolfo Gucci for Princess Grace of Monaco, has been reimagined by the house’s creative directors over the years, from Ford’s floral Jackie bag to a sheer gown by Giannini for the Gucci Flora fragrance campaign.

In “Zoetrope,” Frisa has peeled back the layers to examine the relationship between human and horse with Gucci’s horsebit accessories that waves into fetishism. It’s the first place in the exhibition where a look from De Sarno’s spring 2024 show is featured, a python effect jacket and HotPants in red, teal green and white with matching platform loafers — signaling the brand’s drive to restore its luxury appeal as it concentrates on a timeless approach with a more minimal bent.

In Shanghai, the room “Two” contained 10-meter-tall white statues, but because of the space constraints at 180 Studios, the statues now hover just above the floor rotation of six collections being projected onto them.

A piece of Gucci’s archives in Florence comes to life in “Archivio,” a baby blue maze filled with cabinets, drawers and mirrored ceilings that showcases the brand’s rich handbag history including the Bamboo 1947, the Jackie 1961, the Horsebit 1955, the Gucci Diana, the Dionysus and De Sarno’s two red bags, a mini version of the Jackie with a hook clasp in silver hardware and a bucket version of the bag.

The deep, mature red shade is a combination of all red Gucci bags mixed together to form this new shade.

“Red is actually everywhere at Gucci. The very first Jackie bag was black with a red lining. I went to the Savoy Hotel, where Guccio Gucci worked and the elevator, inside, is red,” De Sarno told WWD in his first interview in September.

There are bags in the archive that have not yet been revisited, but in due time could be popular, such as a classic boxy top-handle bag with a horseshoe clasp or a rectangular crossbody with a silver tiger’s head attached to a piece of gold hardware.

Under the cabinets, guests can pull out the draws to rediscover past Gucci artifacts, including books, illustrations and campaign imagery.

The eighth room, “Cabinet of Wonders,” contains a red rotating cabinet that opens and closes to display key Gucci moments with an homage to the U.K. Items include Harry Styles’ sequined Coachella jumpsuit; a jacket from Michele’s collaboration with Elton John, and a black dress with blue bows worn by Irish disability activist Sinéad Burke.

De Sarno’s gold jewelry that debuted on Gucci’s Instagram with a photo of Daria Werbowy at Chateau Marmont wearing only a bikini bottom also features in the cabinet along with a crystal studded Jackie bag and top that Jessica Chastain has worn.

“‘Carousel’ is again another way of expressing the relay dance from one designer to the next within the house,” explained Devlin, referencing the penultimate room that contains 25 mannequins dating back to the ‘70s.

As the looks rotate on a conveyor belt, illustrations by four U.K.-based artists are projected onto the screens, as well as the illustrations that were featured in the Shanghai exhibition.

The exhibition concludes in an empty room called “​​Gucci Ancora” with a large rectangular box that plays a collage of videos and images with a red hue layered over.

“It picks up from that revolving red box we had in ‘Cabinet of Wonders.’ This time it’s a glass heart [metaphorically] for a special film using his personal footage. It’s almost vulnerable, it’s somebody peeling their skin off and saying, ‘I’m so committed to this, I’m actually going to peel off a layer of me and share it,’” said Devlin.

In the shadowed room, phrases run across in Italian and English while a voiceover of Devlin and De Sarno plays on a loop.

On one side of the room, small hooks are attached to the wall with interchangeable clear plastic slabs that contain words chosen by De Sarno for the guests to interact with and tell their own narrative.

“I like words a lot, they have weight and a precise meaning, they convey emotions, so I like artists who use words, Robert Barry or Alighiero Boetti,” said De Sarno.

The expression of art seems to be a recurring theme so far in the designer’s work.

Gucci’s recently opened 15,000-square-foot store on New Bond Street is filled with artwork from Liliana Moro, Franco Mazzucchelli, Alighiero Boetti, Matilde Cassani, Jonny Niesche, Massimo Uberti, Joshua Woolford, Simon Callery and Tim Etchells.

The works have been selected by art consultant Truls Blaasmo to celebrate Italian artistry, as well as art forms such as geometry, primary colors, sculptures and text-based art.

Lucio Fontana’s red “1967,” artwork will be on display during Frieze Week in the Salon room this week and stay there afterward.

More artwork will be introduced later in the year as the brand pushes to turn the store not only into a shopping destination but a living space that tells the story of Gucci in a museum-like way.

The sneaker is part of On's lifestyle product lineup intended for everyday wear.

Loewe‘s ongoing partnership with On has been something of a case study on how two hot brands can maximize each other’s buzz. Now the duo is taking on an entirely new sneaker.

For the brands’ fourth capsule, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned brand and the Swiss athletic company are introducing the Cloudtilt. As part of On’s Cloud series (and overall design philosophy), the new sneaker silhouette is part of the brand’s lifestyle-focused product intended for everyday wear.

The Cloudtilt is the first shoe in On’s lifestyle series to incorporate the brand’s CloudTec Phase, which uses computer-generated midsole technology to provide cushioning with fewer components. The brand also utilized its Finite Element Analysis software, which simulates the ways in which walking stresses parts of the legs and feet.

The sneaker features a knitted sock upper made of 99 percent recycled polyester, On’s speed laces and an EVA foam outsole that minimizes the use of rubber, plus packaging made from 100 percent recycled industrial materials.

Done in both men’s and women’s sizing, the Cloudtilt will come in two drops, the first on Thursday (with pre-launch on the Loewe site on Wednesday), done in black, lime green, khaki and blue. A second drop is set for January with a series of more nuanced colorways (sand, wild rose, slate gray and beet red). Each pair is priced at $490.

The two brands tapped Thibaut Grevet to shoot the new capsule’s campaign, which shows athletes from all walks of life in the Cloudtilt to highlight the silhouette’s emphasis on movement. The cast includes world champion and Olympic gold medalist race walker Liu Hong; gymnast Yonghon Huh; dancers Roy Kaneza and Hortense de Gromard; BMX rider Cindy Dos Reis; animal flow instructor Stefan Crainic, and first-ever female Emirati motor racing driver Amna Al Qubaisi.

Both Loewe and On have excelled during a challenging year. For the second quarter, the Swiss athletic brand was one of the few footwear brands to post positive results in North America, reporting 66.8 percent growth for the region during that quarter. The brand recently also said it intends to double its projected 2023 net sales by 2026.

Loewe, meanwhile, topped Lyst’s Index Report for 2023’s second quarter, becoming the “World’s Hottest Brand” with a 19 percent rise in searches for that period.

Saronic, a startup developing autonomous ships for defense, has raised $55 million in a Series A round led by Caffeinated Capital with participation from 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Silent Ventures, Overmatch Ventures, Ensemble VC, Cubit Capital and the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund.

Saronic CEO Dino Mavrookas, a former Navy SEAL, launched the company last year with the goal of building autonomous surface ships for the Navy and U.S.-aligned defense customers.

Autonomous seagoing vessels is a growing field, albeit one not necessarily focused on defense. Saildrone, which this spring took the wraps off its autonomous vessel for research, has raised well over $100 million in venture capital. Meanwhile, startups like Shone, backed by Y Combinator, are creating tech to retrofit existing ships with autonomous navigation capabilities.

Saronic builds autonomous boats from the ground up, Mavrookas says.

“We build our boats around the mission, not the mission around the boat,” he told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Saronic fills a gap where shipbuilders, traditionally focused on manufacturing large naval ships, lack the capacity and expertise [for autonomous ship design], while other vendors provide legacy platforms and struggle with production at scale.”

Saronic is currently prototyping two ships, the 6-foot Spyglass and 13-foot Cutlass, each outfitted with remotely updatable software and capable of carrying “diverse” payloads even in communication dead zones. Evidently, the Navy was impressed with these; Mavrookas claims that Saronic already has two R&D agreements with the maritime service branch.

My colleagues Anna Heim and Connie Loizos recently wrote about how VC firms are opening the floodgates for defense tech. Historically, defense tech hasn’t drawn in the venture capital associated with other industries. But that started to change last year, when U.S.-based defense tech startups raised a total of $2.1 billion across 53 total deals, which includes defense firm Anduril’s $1.5 billion Series E.

Momentum isn’t slowing down. In the last few months, Helsing, a “defense AI” startup backed by Spotify founder Daniel Ek, broke a record for European AI startups, raising a $223 million Series B. Castelion, which aims to mass-produce defense hardware starting with hypersonics, secured a $14.2 million initial funding round. And defense startup Mach Industries landed $79 million at a $335 million valuation.

There’s a number of geopolitical factors contributing to the boom, the ongoing war in Ukraine being one of them. Certain startup segments in China have become less attractive than they once were, given newly imposed export controls and rules restricting U.S.-based investors from backing critical tech. And the U.S. government and its allies — through laws like the CHIPS and Science Act and funds such as defense alliance’s NATO’s $1 billion startup tranche — are actively promoting investments in semiconductors and broader industrial development.

The climate’s to Saronic’s benefit. But, Mavrookas asserts, the startup’s also competing on its own merits.

“Saronic is unlike any other company in the maritime autonomy arena — our competitors are predominantly boat builders trying to be technology companies,” Mavrookas said. “Autonomy at sea has unique challenges. Constants for space, land, and air autonomy; like fixed positions and constant distances, aren’t reliable on the ever-shifting surface of the ocean … Saronic is a technology company delivering capabilities through autonomous boats.”

Saronic, which is based in Austin, Texas, has raised around $70 million in venture capital to date and has roughly 45 employees.

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The bond selloff is likely to have lasting effects on stocks

A surge in bond yields has interrupted the 2023 stock rally, leaving investors sifting through market signals to predict what comes next.

Stock investors are scrutinizing the bond market because yields affect everything in markets and the economy, from corporate borrowing costs to the present value of future earnings and the likely direction of stock indexes.

That means the bond selloff, which recently drove the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note above 4.8% for the first time since 2007, could have lasting effects on which stocks lead the market and when major indexes start climbing again.

The S&P 500 has retreated 5.5% from its July high, cutting its year-to-date advance to 13%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly gave up all of its gains for the year last week.

Analysts say the size and speed of the changes in long-term rates make it less likely that stocks are poised to embark on a sustainable new rally.

“Rates are really the name of the game right now,” said Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions. “As long as you have that upward pressure on rates, that’s what’s really keeping the equity markets in this kind of stasis.”

The swift climb in yields has eroded one measure of the reward for holding stocks over government bonds—known as the equity-risk premium—to its lowest level in more than 20 years.

The S&P 500’s earnings yield, based on profits expected over the next 12 months, was just 0.766 percentage point higher Friday than the yield on the 10-year Treasury. That’s the lowest equity-risk premium since June 2002, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

The dwindling reward for risk-taking has weighed on prices throughout the stock market. Several commonly used technical indicators show the extent of the pullback.

The number of S&P 500 stocks hitting new intraday 52-week lows recently rose to the highest level since October 2022, while the share of stocks trading above their 50-day moving averages fell to its lowest level in a year, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

In June and July, as the index advanced toward its 2023 high, few stocks were making new lows and many were trading above their recent averages.

The low levels of the breadth metrics don’t mean the market has bottomed. But when the indicators start to improve, that can be a promising signal, said David Keller, chief market strategist at StockCharts.com.

The S&P 500 as a whole, meantime, has fallen close to its 200-day moving average, a long-term trend line consulted by analysts. It ended Monday 3% above the moving average. One day last week, it closed just 0.7% above the line.

“Holding the 200 day is one of those basic measures of: ‘Is this market holding up or is it potentially getting a lot worse?’” Keller said.

Falling below the moving average shows “there aren’t buyers coming in where you’d expect they normally would, and that usually is a concerning sign of a further bearish decline,” he said.

The S&P 500 rallied Friday, notching its best day in more than a month, after investors cheered signs of softening wage growth in the September jobs report. Technology stocks led the way higher, again powering the market after a recent spell of weakness. Investors are also watching the unfolding Israel-Hamas war for developments that could affect markets.

Rising interest rates hold the potential to spur a more lasting shift in market leadership. The low rates of recent years made the future growth promised by tech companies particularly attractive. If rates were to remain high, that could make far-off profits a less alluring bet.

So far, the tech trade hasn’t suffered much. A handful of large companies in technology and adjacent sectors account for most of the S&P 500’s advance so far this year. Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla make up 30.5% of the S&P 500, up from 21.5% at the end of last year.

In one sign of how the index’s large stocks are leaping ahead, the S&P 500 is on pace this year to outperform a version in which each constituent is equally weighted, rather than weighted by market value, by the most since 1998.

Utilities, consumer staples and real-estate stocks have slumped lately as higher yields make their sizable dividend payments less enticing.

Value stocks, traditionally considered those that trade at a low multiple of their book value, or net worth, also have lagged behind the market. Some investors expect that dynamic to reverse if rates remain elevated, since the prices of such shares tend to be less reliant on expectations of robust growth.

“You would own U.S. small cap and value stocks in that higher-interest-rate environment, as opposed to the large megacaps,” said Rick Pitcairn, chief global strategist of multifamily office Pitcairn. Instead, “nobody wants them.”

That might be because many of those stocks are seen as vulnerable to any economic downturn. But Pitcairn expects higher interest rates to persist long past the next recession, making small-cap and value shares attractive investments in the coming years.

The rise in yields has prompted some investors to question the lofty valuations commanded by some corners of the stock market. The technology sector traded last week at 24.9 times its projected earnings over the next 12 months, above a 10-year average of 18.6. The S&P 500 as a whole was priced at 18 times future earnings, slightly above its 10-year average.

Those valuation measures are based on forecasts for strong earnings growth. Wall Street expects corporate profits to take off next year, growing 8.2% in the first quarter of 2024, 12% in the second quarter and almost 14% in the third quarter, according to FactSet.

Some money managers are skeptical. Many expect that the tightening of financial conditions caused by the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases is still working to slow the economy.

“How does the economy reaccelerate and earnings reaccelerate alongside that with that macroeconomic backdrop? I just don’t see it,” said Matt Stucky, vice president and chief equity portfolio manager for Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.

Sunak’s decision to curtail the rail project goes against international experience

Imagine you were connecting two cities, one rich, one poor, separated by a wide river. A transformational plan for a new bridge is forged to improve connectivity between them and stimulate growth. Evaluations suggest the long-run benefits far exceed the upfront costs. But high upfront costs, and distant long-run benefits, are hostages to short-term thinking. To save money, the decision is made to build only half a bridge, starting from the rich side of the river.

Not unreasonably, people soon question the value of this half-bridge. And, having started on the expensive side of the river, not only are upfront costs higher than planned but the benefits have disappeared entirely. A quarter of the way in, cost-benefit calculations are rerun. They suggest even completing the second quarter of the half-bridge is now uneconomic. That is duly canned and blushes are covered by using the cost savings to finance hundreds of small boats for use by those on the poorer side of the river.

This, alas, is no fairy tale. It is the grim story of the UK’s High Speed 2 rail project. Last week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced this would be a quarter-bridge (London to Birmingham) rather than the half-bridge (London to Manchester) promised, with the savings reinvested in small local transport projects. This decision, and the many leading up to it, are a case study in how not to evaluate, design and deliver long-term, transformational growth projects.

It is easy to forget that HS2 began life as a full bridge. It was intended not only to connect the great cities of the North, including Manchester and Leeds, but Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland. Today, people talk animatedly about “15-minute cities”. At its inception, a completed HS2 would have made the UK a “90-minute nation”. Its major cities would have been connected in the time it takes to watch a football match, well ahead of many competitors.

The calculus of this expansive plan were clear and compelling, some pointing to £2.40 of benefits for every £1 spent. And even this was a potentially significant understatement. The Treasury’s project evaluation framework is designed for small projects yielding static, linear returns. For large, transformational investment projects where the network benefits are dynamic, the framework misses most of them.

International experience is salutary. Much is made of the rise of the global megacity. But it is mega-regions — connected agglomerations of megacities — that are the new frontier of growth. What started in the Tōkaidō region of Japan in the 1960s is now a global phenomenon. China has about 20 actual or emergent mega-regions, the US about a dozen. Each is part of a strategic economic development framework, underpinned by an inter-city connectivity plan. More than 25 countries have created or are building high-speed rail networks to unlock the economic potential of emergent mega-regions.

All, that is, except the UK. Instead, the full HS2 bridge has been thin-sliced into the world’s most expensive pier. With each curtailment, the network benefits have beaten a hasty retreat, and with them the prospects of the UK becoming a high-growth, high-connectivity mega-region. The country’s great cities will remain connected, but in the time it takes to watch a cricket Test match.

This outcome is all the more surprising because most analyses suggest the aggregative potential of the UK is very high given its twin endowments of large existing regional imbalances and small geographic footprint. The OECD ranks the UK, along with South Korea, as having the highest degree of potential mega-region centrality, as measured by access to population by distance and possible travel time. HS2 decisions mean the UK’s growth is unlikely to be travelling at high speed any time soon.  

None of this is to suggest it is unwise to invest in smaller, local transport projects. Lack of investment here is one of the reasons the UK’s great cities underperform their international peers. The mega, or 15-minute, city should indeed be the aspiration. But it is a false trade-off to see this is an alternative to improved inter-city connectivity and a potential 90-minute nation. As international experience makes clear, the journey from city to megacity to mega-region is an up-only growth accelerator.

Like many of its citizens, this is not now a journey the UK will be making rapidly. Rightly, Sunak last week implored us to think big, bright and long-term. Decades of decision-making around HS2 could scarcely stand in sharper contrast. If it continues to underinvest in long-term transformational projects, few things could be dimmer than the UK’s own growth prospects.