Demna’s Gucci Debut Has Arrived
A cinematic family portrait signals Demna’s shift in his first Gucci collection
When Gucci announced Demna as its new artistic director earlier this year, the fashion world braced for impact. After all, this is the man who made Balenciaga synonymous with meme culture, who turned dystopian streetwear into luxury’s lingua franca. What would happen when his radical, often polarising vision collided with Gucci’s maximalist heritage and Italian sensuality?
The answer was unveiled this week in the form of La Famiglia. Rather than the runway shock-tactics we’ve come to expect from Demna, his first outing at Gucci arrives as a lookbook—a cinematic family portrait. It is a collection that reminds us Gucci is more than a brand; instead, it serves as a reminder that it is an attitude, a cast of characters, and a shared language of excess that can actually look good.
A Designer Built on Displacement
Demna’s own biography feels almost mythic. Born in Georgia in 1981, he fled the Abkhazian war as a child, before finally settling in Germany many, many years later. After studying at Antwerp’s Royal Academy, he worked with Margiela and Vuitton before founding Vetements—a collective that dismantled fashion from within. Then came Balenciaga, where he redefined the house with streetwear-inflected couture, dystopian tailoring, and cultural commentary disguised as clothes.
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If Vetements was a revolution and Balenciaga an era, Gucci is now his dynasty. And in many ways, La Famiglia is his most personal debut: a designer stepping into Italy’s largest luxury house at a moment when it needs both rebirth and authority.
Gucci at a Crossroads
To understand the stakes, you have to understand Gucci’s place in 2025. The house has been through turbulence: under Sabato De Sarno, collections were pared-back, elegant, but critics whispered they lacked “heat.” Sales confirmed the unease, with a reported 25% drop in Q2 this year. Parent company Kering installed Francesca Bellettini as CEO, tasking her with stabilising Gucci and rekindling desirability.
Then Demna entered, not as a stylistic stunt but maybe a calculated appointment. He arrives as both visionary and pragmatist—someone who knows how to craft narrative while also driving relevance and commerce. Gucci does not just need clothes; it needs cultural gravity.
The Anatomy of La Famiglia
The collection opens with L’Archetipo, a monogrammed travel trunk that nods to Guccio Gucci’s beginnings in valigeria. From there, 37 looks unfold, each embodied by a character: Incazzata in her fiery red coat, La Bomba with her feline stripes, La Cattiva’s femme-fatale severity, Miss Aperitivo’s irreverent hedonism, L’Influencer as digital-age devotee. Principino and Principessa stand at the centre—two sides of Gucci’s eternal obsession with attention.
Catherine Opie’s portraits frame the collection like an aristocratic album: the Italian family reimagined through fashion archetypes. It is theatrical, yes, but with a knowing irony.
Heritage, Rewritten
Demna treats Gucci’s codes with reverence but also irreverence. The Bamboo 1947 bag and the Horsebit loafer, both house icons, return re-proportioned and re-staged. The Flora motif appears nocturnal and moody. The GG monogram isworn all over, but never gratuitous.
Sprezzatura runs throughout: slingbacks worn stepped-in, soft mules collapsing at the heel, tailoring with ease. Silhouettes move from extremes of grandeur—a feathered opera coat dripping with drama—to the near-invisible: sheer hosiery worn as eveningwear, black-tie recast as swimwear. Menswear is glamorous, unapologetically so, proving that dressing for pleasure is no longer gendered terrain.
Beyond Balenciaga, Without Forgetting
Those expecting Balenciaga 2.0 will be surprised. The oversized hoodies, ironic graphics, and dystopian sneakers are absent. What remains, however, is Demna’s talent for archetypes, for making fashion characters rather than clothes alone.
Most importantly, La Famiglia marks Gucci’s return to storytelling. After seasons of either over-indulgence or restraint, this feels like a reset: a reassertion of Gucci’s core strength—its ability to seduce us with myth. In a time when luxury is crowded with quiet minimalism and logo fatigue, Demna offers a different proposition, and it’s Gucci’s glamour with a new narrative.
However, this is only the prologue. His first runway for Gucci will come in February, where the vision will be tested in real time. But already, La Famiglia reads as a manifesto: Gucci is once again a world you want to enter.