Demna brings sexy back in effort to reinvigorate Gucci | Gucci

Demna is fashion’s dark lord of apocalyptic streetwear. Gucci is the glossy sex kitten of Milan. Put the two together, and what do you get? Sex appeal that flirts with bad taste.

At Demna’s first Gucci catwalk show, staged in Milan on Friday afternoon in front of an audience including Donatella Versace and Paris and Nicky Hilton, dresses were so short and tight that Emily Ratajkowski periodically yanked down a handful of disco-ball sequins to cover her bottom as she walked. There were lapdance-bar tinsel hair extensions, and Kate Moss in a diamante G-string. A certain sketchiness in the roll of the hips, a model who pulled his phone out of his bumbag and scrolled his way down the catwalk.

“Everybody thought I would make oversized bomber jackets with monograms,” said the mononymous king-of-the-hoodie designer after the show. “That’s what ChatGPT said, apparently. But that’s not why I came to Gucci.” Instead, he said, his Gucci will be “energy, passion, fun and sex”.

The walk-of-shame vibe was a surprise, considering that the night before the show Demna had released a statement citing Botticelli’s early Renaissance paintings as an inspiration. Backstage, he explained the connection as wanting “to put Gucci back into cultural relevance. Gucci is part of Italian culture – like Botticelli, like Michelangelo. But cultural relevance always starts with underground culture, not with the mainstream, even with a big brand. Gucci has to be fearless.”

Fashion history is on his side. Gucci’s best eras have been its boldest. When compellingly slutty-yet-aloof under Tom Ford, or ambitiously gender-fluid and vintage-curious under Alessandro Michele, Gucci has plugged fashion into pop culture. The recent brief reign of Sabato De Sarno was widely regarded as playing disastrously safe. And, having grabbed the audience’s attention, Demna added easier-to-wear elements: high-waisted jeans, leather tailoring, a navy peacoat, pointy boots.

Invitations had been delivered in plush black velvet-padded jewellery boxes as if they were priceless diamonds, announcing this show as Gucci “by Demna”. This break with etiquette – a storied luxury house does not usually share top billing with any employee – was a power move. Demna is enjoying himself, and feeling himself.

“For 10 years, I was trying to prove I was smart. At Gucci, I have the freedom to create from an emotional standpoint, not an intellectual one.” He is happier and healthier now than he has ever been, he added, “and maybe part of it is that I’m falling in love with myself, which I never was before”.

Gucci cannot afford for this roll of the dice to fail, and neither can the wider industry. De Sarno was let go after a short and underwhelming run. Gucci is the cash cow of Kering and several years of underperformance have weakened the group – which, in turn, is bad for the wider industry.

Poor sales are not just bad news for the company’s billionaire owner François-Henri Pinault and his shareholders, but have had a deleterious knock-on effect on fashion: Kering, when flush, had been the luxury group most willing to take a punt on esoteric brands and innovative designers. When it tightens its belt the fashion industry is less interesting.

The optimism around Demna’s appointment has already had a positive impact. The news this month that Gucci’s sales had fallen less than expected – a 3% decrease in the final quarter of last year, following a 4% decrease in the preceding period – led to Kering’s share price rising by 15%.

Demna’s provocative instincts made him a fashion superstar – but have also seen him cancelled. At Balenciaga, he was lauded for an emotionally charged show in the early weeks of the Ukraine war that made reference to his experience as a child refugee in Georgia, but he became a pariah for advertisements featuring teddy bears in bondage which scandalised consumers.

Whether Demna’s era at Gucci is a marriage made in heaven or a mutual self-destruction pact is yet to be seen. Either way, expect fireworks.