デムナのグッチが夢を売っている

Generally, when people talk about fashion, the two arenas they discuss are the catwalk and the street. Yet, the latter is where fashion becomes clothes, really reality, meanwhile the former where it’s a performance, an art piece put on a pedestal to be inspected, sometimes reviled, maybe adored. Both of those ideas don’t make me think of Gucci – which is, at its heart, a leather goods brand, founded by the fabulously named Guccio Gucci who, after spending a few years hauling luggage at The Savoy Hotel in London, realised he could probably make a bomb making good luggage, and did just that – weirdly, a familiar origin story among the European luxury houses that didn’t begin in haute couture. Those ideas make me think of Yves Saint Laurent, who was the master of both. I remember once also speaking to Saint Laurent co-founder Pierre Bergé about the revolution of Saint Laurent’s Rive Gauche, the first real and proper ready-to-wear line, with its own stand-alone boutique on the Left bank after which it was named. That was the revolution actually, not the clothes: in the Sixties, Bergé recalled, brands didn’t have stores. “And now … ” he trailed off. 

That was a decade ago – Bergé died in 2017. But still, I’d argue the store is the real arena of fashion, the thing that you can still get excited about, seeing stuff that was otherwise a hazy, indeterminate image coming to life. It’s exacerbated now, honestly, by the fact that even when watching a fashion show in the flesh, you are inevitably actually observing it through an iPhone – either your own, or someone else’s. “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking,” as Christopher Isherwood wrote. Not at a fashion show. But still.

The store is where the fantasy becomes flesh, where the dream becomes reality, and where the real and essential exchange happens – not of Amex, but from pure image to something on your back. Which is why it was interesting that Demna decided to stage his third Gucci show – and, in his view, his first fully realised one – in a craven temple, to the sordid topic of coin. It was a fantasy, too – daytime passage accelerated, light shifting, different vistas visible from different angles, an impossible Gucci hyper-mall, although one also destined to become true, a preview of a new retail concept that will open in the Avenue Montaigne next month. And also a funny fashion in-joke – perception being that there’s nothing tackier than an event held ‘in store’. And, of course, a store is open to all walks, passing through, ‘just browsing’. Demna is great at those things – in-joke with wide swing, high with low.

Earlier this week, at a preview with Women’s Wear Daily, he said something astoundingly pertinent. “What Gucci means, let’s say, to a 60-year-old Italian man is completely different than what it means to a 25-year-old French girl.” It’s obvious, really – but, weirdly, that’s an idea you realise lots of people in fashion brands don’t really think about, during their relentless discussion about positioning, about aspiration. Fashion is, by its nature, mutable and ever-shifting. But for a long time groupthink has been to define a fashion house in singular territory – a silhouette, an approach to materiality, an ideology. Gucci did it – it was sexy under Tom Ford, eccentrico under Alessandro Michele, with deviation from either template roundly discouraged, by c-suite, chattering masses alike. Interesting, it’s something Demna has to tackle in rehabbing Gucci – assertions from various stations, of what Gucci is, what it should be. 

Demna is astute to perceive a potential plurality in Gucci, and his observation is also accurate. My perception of Gucci is coloured by the cultural capital of growing up in those Tom Ford years – someone born in 2001 didn’t feel what I feel. Their Gucci, my Gucci, your Gucci may be significantly, even vastly different.

How to reconcile that, on a slick carrera marble shop shelf? Demna seemed to suggest you maybe can’t. Rather, for Spring/Summer 2027, he showed Gucci stereotypes just passing through, fleeting glances of what Gucci is to many, what it could be to you. He characterised them as the rebellious aristocrat, the snob, and indeed the eccentric, although his take on the latter is far from Michele’s madcap everything-but-il-lavello-della-cucina approach. It meant the show could start with sharp suits cropped above perennially stockless ankles, and evolve through popped-collar paninari to slick, moneyed women in equestrian drag or tense tailoring, Sloane Rangers in pleated skirts, pearls and bombers avoiding trophy wives in tarty party dresses and intentionally obnoxious (faux) furs. And a bunch of kids who, maybe, were looking to five-finger discount some small leather goods. The casting, incidentally, of these various characters was genius. They made total sense, in a way a bunch of models never could.

Those kinds of broad strokes of different folks reminded me of Pierre Cardin, his empire of licensing that united the world in the seductive power of a brand name. Cardin hawked sardines and tyres with his imprimatur – Gucci isn’t seeking to do the same. But there was a sense of Gucci-fying fragments of a wardrobe, Sylvanian Family-scale horsebits stitched onto shirts, blown-up big on the back of a zaftig-puffed shearling coat, or triple-stacked on belts. A bamboo bag toggle migrated to pull a zipper, closing a worn-out cotton hoodie actually lined in supple crocodile. Striped cotton shirts were lined in Gucci emblems. 

Demna is interested in big questions. If last time he tackled sex, with a Sildenafil-slinky ode to the body, this time it was money. What does money look like, not just today, but yesterday and tomorrow? How do people want to express wealth, especially pertinent in a time of ever-increasing inequality, a K-shaped hole of an economy? And – all-important – what will sell? That said, this collection had a warmth and wit, a kind of tender irony, with soft edges. There was a fullness and an aesthetic richness, that did indeed demonstrate his full immersion in the Gucciness of Gucci over the past 12 months or so. What it wasn’t was an archival pull, bar a few fragments – those tack shop bits and buckles, an angular crystal G on a jersey evening dress, a Dionysus clutch, a horsey borse, of course.

Some observers wrinkled their noses at the perceived commerciality of this offering. But hey, what’s the point of clothes if not to sell them? Throw back to the golden age of haute couture – if they weren’t shifting suits, those legendary names would’ve gone out of business. Likewise Guccio’s bags back in the day. It’s a trade. Showing in a store, Demna made that intention crystal clear. His Gucci is selling a dream.

Generally, when people talk about fashion, the two arenas they discuss are the catwalk and the street. Yet, the latter is where fashion becomes clothes, really reality, meanwhile the former where it’s a performance, an art piece put on a pedestal to be inspected, sometimes reviled, maybe adored. Both of those ideas don’t make me think of Gucci – which is, at its heart, a leather goods brand, founded by the fabulously named Guccio Gucci who, after spending a few years hauling luggage at The Savoy Hotel in London, realised he could probably make a bomb making good luggage, and did just that – weirdly, a familiar origin story among the European luxury houses that didn’t begin in haute couture. Those ideas make me think of Yves Saint Laurent, who was the master of both. I remember once also speaking to Saint Laurent co-founder Pierre Bergé about the revolution of Saint Laurent’s Rive Gauche, the first real and proper ready-to-wear line, with its own stand-alone boutique on the Left bank after which it was named. That was the revolution actually, not the clothes: in the Sixties, Bergé recalled, brands didn’t have stores. “And now … ” he trailed off. 

That was a decade ago – Bergé died in 2017. But still, I’d argue the store is the real arena of fashion, the thing that you can still get excited about, seeing stuff that was otherwise a hazy, indeterminate image coming to life. It’s exacerbated now, honestly, by the fact that even when watching a fashion show in the flesh, you are inevitably actually observing it through an iPhone – either your own, or someone else’s. “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking,” as Christopher Isherwood wrote. Not at a fashion show. But still.

The store is where the fantasy becomes flesh, where the dream becomes reality, and where the real and essential exchange happens – not of Amex, but from pure image to something on your back. Which is why it was interesting that Demna decided to stage his third Gucci show – and, in his view, his first fully realised one – in a craven temple, to the sordid topic of coin. It was a fantasy, too – daytime passage accelerated, light shifting, different vistas visible from different angles, an impossible Gucci hyper-mall, although one also destined to become true, a preview of a new retail concept that will open in the Avenue Montaigne next month. And also a funny fashion in-joke – perception being that there’s nothing tackier than an event held ‘in store’. And, of course, a store is open to all walks, passing through, ‘just browsing’. Demna is great at those things – in-joke with wide swing, high with low.

Earlier this week, at a preview with Women’s Wear Daily, he said something astoundingly pertinent. “What Gucci means, let’s say, to a 60-year-old Italian man is completely different than what it means to a 25-year-old French girl.” It’s obvious, really – but, weirdly, that’s an idea you realise lots of people in fashion brands don’t really think about, during their relentless discussion about positioning, about aspiration. Fashion is, by its nature, mutable and ever-shifting. But for a long time groupthink has been to define a fashion house in singular territory – a silhouette, an approach to materiality, an ideology. Gucci did it – it was sexy under Tom Ford, eccentrico under Alessandro Michele, with deviation from either template roundly discouraged, by c-suite, chattering masses alike. Interesting, it’s something Demna has to tackle in rehabbing Gucci – assertions from various stations, of what Gucci is, what it should be. 

Demna is astute to perceive a potential plurality in Gucci, and his observation is also accurate. My perception of Gucci is coloured by the cultural capital of growing up in those Tom Ford years – someone born in 2001 didn’t feel what I feel. Their Gucci, my Gucci, your Gucci may be significantly, even vastly different.

How to reconcile that, on a slick carrera marble shop shelf? Demna seemed to suggest you maybe can’t. Rather, for Spring/Summer 2027, he showed Gucci stereotypes just passing through, fleeting glances of what Gucci is to many, what it could be to you. He characterised them as the rebellious aristocrat, the snob, and indeed the eccentric, although his take on the latter is far from Michele’s madcap everything-but-il-lavello-della-cucina approach. It meant the show could start with sharp suits cropped above perennially stockless ankles, and evolve through popped-collar paninari to slick, moneyed women in equestrian drag or tense tailoring, Sloane Rangers in pleated skirts, pearls and bombers avoiding trophy wives in tarty party dresses and intentionally obnoxious (faux) furs. And a bunch of kids who, maybe, were looking to five-finger discount some small leather goods. The casting, incidentally, of these various characters was genius. They made total sense, in a way a bunch of models never could.

Those kinds of broad strokes of different folks reminded me of Pierre Cardin, his empire of licensing that united the world in the seductive power of a brand name. Cardin hawked sardines and tyres with his imprimatur – Gucci isn’t seeking to do the same. But there was a sense of Gucci-fying fragments of a wardrobe, Sylvanian Family-scale horsebits stitched onto shirts, blown-up big on the back of a zaftig-puffed shearling coat, or triple-stacked on belts. A bamboo bag toggle migrated to pull a zipper, closing a worn-out cotton hoodie actually lined in supple crocodile. Striped cotton shirts were lined in Gucci emblems. 

Demna is interested in big questions. If last time he tackled sex, with a Sildenafil-slinky ode to the body, this time it was money. What does money look like, not just today, but yesterday and tomorrow? How do people want to express wealth, especially pertinent in a time of ever-increasing inequality, a K-shaped hole of an economy? And – all-important – what will sell? That said, this collection had a warmth and wit, a kind of tender irony, with soft edges. There was a fullness and an aesthetic richness, that did indeed demonstrate his full immersion in the Gucciness of Gucci over the past 12 months or so. What it wasn’t was an archival pull, bar a few fragments – those tack shop bits and buckles, an angular crystal G on a jersey evening dress, a Dionysus clutch, a horsey borse, of course.

Some observers wrinkled their noses at the perceived commerciality of this offering. But hey, what’s the point of clothes if not to sell them? Throw back to the golden age of haute couture – if they weren’t shifting suits, those legendary names would’ve gone out of business. Likewise Guccio’s bags back in the day. It’s a trade. Showing in a store, Demna made that intention crystal clear. His Gucci is selling a dream.