Shop ‘til you drop: Demna’s swoon-worthy Gucci
For Spring/Summer 2027, Demna made Gucci feel right with a confident, convincing and game-changing sophomore collection for the house. Anders Christian Madsen reviews the show.
Chemistry is the most curious thing. After years on the dating market, trying to meet Mister Right, this season Gucci finally found the right match. They’d gone on a few dates. There had been sparks and things got pretty sexy. But it wasn’t until they really got to know each other that the two hit it off; that two became one. “I want Gucci to [be] a place where those who may appear to have nothing in common can meet, connect and inspire one another,” Demna – Gucci’s new dreamboat – wrote in a letter sent to the press before his sophomore show for the house. It took place in a conference centre on the west side of Milan decked out like a giant store, complete with real marble walls and fittings that will go into actual Gucci stores as part of Demna’s new decorative identity for its flagships.
“My first year at Gucci was dedicated to understanding and formulating what Gucci stands for. The conclusion of my research is that Gucci stands for being rooted in the desire to belong to a more glamorous world, and in the audacity to remake that world in your own image. Gucci is about luxury that wants to be seen,” he wrote. For those of us who grew up on Tom Ford’s Gucci and flocked to the local store as teenagers as if it were some sort of after-school clubhouse for the super cool (shout-out to Oliver in the Copenhagen store for never kicking me out), those words rang true. Gucci always had that magnetic, aspirational, transformative power. Walking through its doors releases endorphins. On Friday afternoon, in his big meta manifestation, Demna activated that feeling.
The show started with a men’s collection presented on a cast of incredibly handsome men, who the designer draped in his Italian character-centric styling. There was the rich Milan guy in white jeans and preppy rugby shirts with neat bombers or quilted jackets. There was the Tom Ford raffinato in his luxe pea coat and softened square-toed loafers. And there were Demna’s techno-goth babes in bling necklaces and bondage-y horse-bit belts and hardcore tracksuits. Every fit was exacting: sportswear fashioned with a tailored sensibility; suits cut like sweats; everything lusciously draped, comfortable-looking and luxurious. Slippers came with big, bouncy tassels that swept down Demna’s shop floor with sumptuous swagger.
Then came the women’s collection, presented on a character-driven cast of real people, who included EE72’s very own Jill Demling as well as the likes of Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark, Sabine Getty, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and the incomparable Naty Abascal, who at 83 and in sky-high stiletto boots, personifies the eternal la bomba. Demna drew on Gucci’s equestrian roots in jodhpurs-and-riding-boots looks that set the tone for his ultra-flattering silhouette. They evolved into a twisted bourgeois wardrobe of little tweed suits, lascivious leather dresses, and skimpy skirts and tops. A series of pagoda-shouldered silhouettes shape-shifted into the collection’s climax of big, bold blousons worn with below-the-knee tartan skirts, dramatic shirts and lashings of jewellery. Delicious.
What created that elusive chemistry wasn’t just that these were great everyday clothes that looked good, but that they felt good. Every model and honorary model walked with a kind of confidence that turned these garments into a real proposition. They owned them. They owned it. In a store set that could easily have felt cynical (especially in a Milan season where collections seem particularly focused on retail over creativity) it was that feelgood factor – that spark, that chemistry – that made it right. Because make no mistake about it: with his store set, Demna was also holding up a mirror to an industry that’s fetichising the idea of shopping – of making money – like never before. Just look at the recent shopping mania sparked by Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel. Next season, we’ll be flocking to Gucci once again.
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