Gucci - The Awakening
Over black, we hear Cleo’s VO.
Words weighted with intention speak to the dormant potential of our innermost selves.
Up from the pitch fades in the image of a budding moonflower, which blooms before us. From there we fade over to Cleo, who stands within a New Orleans wetland at night.
This is an ancient sacred place, where the arcing arms of willows and buttressing trunks of cypress come together to form a cathedral of untouched forestry. Camera tracks with her as she follows an uncertain footpath deeper into the marsh.
The canopy splits the milk-light of the moon into silver streaks, which illuminate a vast untamed night garden.
Cleo walks to a bank of moonflowers, and smiles to herself at their nocturnal debut. In this light, they seem to self-luminesce. The stars shining above, and the flowers in bloom below create a visual symmetry, with Cleo standing at the center, delicately spritzing herself with Gucci Bloom.
The darkness of the night begins to lift, the moon begins to fall, and a royal blue sky now hangs overhead.
We intercut scenes of Cleo in the garden with images of Queens of the Night and Gardena Augusta spiraling their petals outward.
From behind the foliage, we picture Cleo against a masterwork of night flowers. Pink and yellow primrose join angel trumpet to swatch the emerald backdrop with pops of color. It’s almost as though her very presence has inspired their awakening. Equal parts poet and muse, we follow her movement with candid curiosity.
Dawn approaches and the stars go silent, now invisibly underpinning a radiant Louisiana sunrise.
Cleo meets the honeyed light of morning like a woman reborn. Embracing her awakening, joyous, and made complete by the knowledge that it was the dormancy of night that brought her to this place of new discovery.
Our camera movement picks up, pushing in close as she frolics through the sprawl, catching her reflection in water, and glimpsing her form through a curtain of leaves.
As high noon arrives, shadows evaporate, and the forest becomes a painting of indigenous flora in climax. Cleo can be seen laying in a flower bed, looking up at the sky through the gently swaying foliage.
We end on an image of Cleo in front of a large still body of water. Behind her we see the night flowers, and in the reflection below we see the midday sky. A final moment of symmetry that reminds us that the totality of her experience is defined by multiplicity.
Cleo’s VO ends with a potent query - leaving room for the viewer to catch their breath.
