excerpt: Gucci. Spring/Summer 2026 - Milan Fashion Week

 

"...And so, thus the other question has to be asked.  Can Demna's antithesis fashion aesthetic, crafted from a decade of reworking Balenciaga to his own tune, be transplanted onto Gucci?

And what we have seen so far with his debut Spring, Summer 2026 collection for Gucci, is that Demna is steering a safer line over the risque, with elements of his backlash stylisations obviously evident, albeit very small.  With large dashes of Tom Ford 1990s esque sex appeal, ala the spillover from 1980s hedonism, which landed Ford's as the more serious imprint onto Gucci, able to sustain the creative direction for the iconic brand for 10 years from 1994 to 2004.  Then handed to Frida Giannini, who ramped up Ford's exclusive sexy highs, until she left the brand in 2014, with Alessandro Michele's revolutionary run with Gucci, who brought in the layback, and innovative as an attempt at a contemporary, counterculture styled thrift look.  Demna maybe testing the waters with his debut collection.

And yet, retrospection snapshots of close to three decades of Gucci's dominance from the 1990s onward is in itself, a risky move.  With less of Demna's antithetical tweaking, while sourcing a timeline of what worked and what didn't, and mixing up the three former creative directors (not so much Alessandro Michele)..."

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(A. Glass 2025)

Full review: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/09/gucci-springsummer-2026-milan-fashion.html