When Demna takes his bow at Gucci this week, it is going to mark the start of a brand new chapter for one in all vogue’s most enduring Homes. Notably, the Fall/Winter 2026 show will likely be his first in-person runway since assuming the artistic director reins, and for a designer recognized for tongue-in-cheek spectacles, the debut arrives freighted with a lot curiosity.
Within the hours earlier than the runway, Demna revealed a typed letter to socials.
Gucci, he wrote, just isn’t constructed on fantasy or couture pedigree, however on product, pragmatism and the power of Italian tradition. After months spent combing the Florentine archives, visiting factories and standing rapt earlier than Botticelli’s Beginning of Venus on the Uffizi Gallery, he emerged with a conviction: Gucci just isn’t merely heritage or vogue, however the friction between the 2. “Heritage and vogue are lovers,” he declared.
If that sounds lofty, Demna insists the outcome ought to really feel something however mental. Lighter. Softer. Extra emotional. With a give attention to archetypes for his inaugural SS26 assortment, ‘La Famiglia’, gown codes and contradictions are very a lot on the playing cards.
Watch the present live from Milan under on Friday, February 27, at 2 pm CET (Saturday, February 28, at 1 am AEST), as Demna introduces his imaginative and prescient of “gucciness” — not simply as a emblem, however as a sense.
