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When Gucci announced that Demna would take the creative helm, fresh from his era-defining tenure at Balenciaga, the industry braced for impact. Fall/Winter 2026 now marks the moment that anticipation truly crystallised, with Demna’s first physical runway for the Italian fashion house.
Set within a monumental, museum-like space lined with marble statuary, the show proposed Gucci as both brand and cultural artefact. This shared language, spoken across archetypes, identities and dress codes, has been the throughline of his previous debuts (SS26 and Pre-Fall), and for this season, the sense of Tom Ford-era Gucci and its bougie club kid fandom made for rich inspiration. From ultra-tight tops and bumbags to svelte mini dresses and voluminous faux furs, Y2K nightlife was revived with a modern elegance.
It opened with a palate cleanser: an ultimate seamless white turtleneck minidress in hosiery fabric that channelled the pure femme-fatale assurance of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. From there, body-clinging silhouettes engineered with invisible heat-sealed edges and curved hems, cut close in a way that felt like a fusion of both Gucci and Demna’s greatest hits. Jackets were cropped and snug, paired with pencil skirts and ab-baring trousers.
Demna’s perennial fascination with hybrid garments surfaced in tracksuit dresses, leggings fused to trousers, and jackets merged with tops into ultra-fitted one-pieces. Feathered bombers framed the face, while butter-soft leathers relaxed bikers and circular stoles. Eveningwear then tipped into decadence with waist-high slits and a backless dress revealing a diamond-studded white-gold GG thong.
Accessories were pragmatic but grounded in a point of view. The Bamboo 1947 streamlined, minaudières stretched for modern life, and a new Manhattan sneaker blending basketball minimalism with moccasin ease stepped up.
And then of course, the runway closed with a bang: Kate Moss, the ultimate 2000s club queen in a slinky black sequined gown, reminiscent of Demna’s couture work. But beyond nostalgia and celebrity cameos, the inaugural runway cemented a new epoch for Gucci, where the past is celebrated with a fresh point of view.
“This collection, and my overall vision for Gucci, is built around a sense of pragmatism,” he wrote in his shownotes. “Products that can be enjoyed by a variety of people, that enrich their lives and make them feel great, that can stand on their own, without the need for pseudo-intellectual justifications.”
