Gucci. Spring/Summer 2026 - Milan Fashion Week

 

Can Demna rescue Gucci?  Or Trump's new found global corporatism, that'll do the trick? Pushing for an interest rate free world, where stock markets will rise exponentially unabated by tightening credit, just never mind the hyperinflation.  Actually, it is China's slump which has caused Gucci's sales via Kering, the holding company, to plunge 25% in 2025, with a frantic reshuffling of CEOs, kicking out Stefano Cantino after only one year, and replacing him with Francesca Bellettini, Kering's former Brand Manager.  Whilst Demna Gvasalia, jumped from the Kering owned Balenciaga after ten years straight into Gucci, to be its new creative director.  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).  Is this also Demna's way of paying homage?  Which, if that is the case you would be portraying that collective homage, at least a few seasons in, not as a debut showing. 

Tilted "La Famiglia" in a 37 lookbook collection, captured by Los Angeles photographer Catherine Opie, and referenced by Demna as the "Gucciness of Gucci", it is certainly not a groundbreaking collection, nor exceptionally innovating.  And yes, we do miss Demna's 'Balenciaga' ragtag models, replaced by a more polished and defined ensemble, with Demna's gimmicky, which we have seen before, faux red carpet expose, although this time it was in lieu of Spike Jones Gucci funded short film "The Tiger" in Milan, as a follow on from the lookbook presentation.  And overall, it does appear that Demna is attempting to return Gucci to its exclusivity, wiping away Michele Alessandro's inclusivity.   A push and pull of creativity vs corporatism. 

All eyes on Kering's share price for hints. 

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(A.Glass 2025)