The fashion world has been watching Gucci with hopeful concern for a couple of years now. After Alessandro Michele’s maximalist era ended in 2022 and Sabato De Sarno’s quieter tenure failed to move the needle for Kering, the house was overdue for a shake up. Today in Milan, Demna delivered the answer.
After spending a decade reshaping Balenciaga into the defining label of its era before parting ways in 2024, Demna made his runway debut as Gucci’s artistic director with the Fall 2026 collection, titled “Primavera.” The name came to Demna after seeing a Botticelli painting at the Uffizi in Florence, leaving an emotional mark that inspired the venue, Milan’s Palazzo delle Scintelle, staged to match. Marble statues lining tiered rows, the space felt rather museum like and purposefully monumental.
Photo by Jacopo Raule/Getty Images for Gucci
The front row alone signalled the energy had shifted. Demi Moore with her chihuahua Pilaf, Shawn Mendes, Romeo Beckham, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Alessandro Michele and Donatella Versace all in the same room. Electric in a way Gucci shows haven’t felt as of late.
The collection opened with a seamless white minidress in hosiery fabric, body-skimming and sharp, worn with what Demna described as “femme fatale attitude.” It was Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct from then on, all cool confidence and unapologetic sex appeal. What followed were 83 looks spanning fluid tailoring in liquid-like fabrics, tracksuits morphing into sleek track dresses, bubble blousons with voluminous feather embroideries, and sparkling two-piece sets worn barefoot. The technical work underneath was felt through seamless construction, heat-sealed edges, and garments cut as close to the body as physically possible.
The Tom Ford shadow was present. The sexuality that defined Gucci in the late ’90s ran through the collection like a current, most obvious in risqué gowns with waist-high slits. The Michele era received a quiet nod too, with a furry Princetown slipper slide in effortlessly.
The cast was a deliberate mix of generations and identities, the visual argument for a house that speaks to everyone. Models strutted, as if on the sidewalk rather than the runway, with a kind of 90’s swagger, some with a hand on one hip and a bag deliberately in the crook of the arm for angular balance to razor sharp hip bones, and others with a controlled energy that occasionally gave way to unexpected, casual gestures, like a model pausing to check his phone mid runway. Demna has long been drawn to disrupting fashion’s formalities, and for the collection he went heavy on subversion and irony to challenge the hierarchies and expectations that surround luxury.
The show closed with Kate Moss in a backless black gown and a white gold double G thong covered in diamonds peeking above the hem. Karlie Kloss walked. Emily Ratajkowski wore a sparkling minidress and stilettos like they were made for her.
Accessories were everywhere and intentional. The iconic Bamboo 1947 bag with a cleaner silhouette and flexible sectioned leather handle. The Manhattan, Demna’s first Gucci sneaker, fused a basketball shape with the ease of a loafer. Everything felt like it belonged in stores immediately, which was the whole point. Demna described the collection built around “pragmatism,” and he meant it.
There’s no way around it, the last few years at Gucci have been rough. Revenue dropped and the brand lost the cultural footing that once made it feel inescapable. Today felt like looked like the beginning of an new, more positive era for the brand. For Gen Z, “Gucci” still means being flamboyant, going out, being a little wild, and Demna is building toward that rather than away. It’s giving street meets luxury and this is Demna’s Gucci.