Of all the names rumored for the Gucci role over the last month—and there were a lot of them—Demna, who was announced as its new artistic director today, is both the most obvious and the least.
Obvious because he’s an internal hire, hiding in plain sight. Both Gucci and Balenciaga, where Demna has been creative director for nearly 10 years, are owned by Kering; the familiarity and comfort level on both sides will ease the transition. Also obvious because his Balenciaga was so original. Glancing back at his silhouette-shifting Balenciaga debut, with its sculptural parkas, the injection molded business suits, the floral dresses with the candy stripe tights—those pieces look as definitive now as they did at the time. The collective thrill across the audience was palpable—it was a real, rare wow moment, one that sparked instant desire.
What makes Demna not such an obvious choice for Gucci is how he’s always led with his iconoclasm, first at Vetements, the independent brand he founded with his brother Guram Gvasalia, and then at Balenciaga, where, to paraphrase what he said backstage this season, he’s been putting chairs on heads and calling it wearable art. Then, of course, there are his powerfully thought-provoking runway shows: on climate change, on the cacophony of social media, on the threat of war.
Gucci rose to the top three of the most viewed shows of the fall 2025 season on Vogue Runway (more on exactly where it netted out tomorrow, when we reveal our top 10 list), and it did so without any creative director at all, which demonstrates the prodigiousness of its audience. But its revenue has fallen precipitously since 2022, the year that Alessandro Michele made his exit. Demna’s directive will be to get the numbers flowing in the opposite direction. That turnaround imperative is why so many people figured Hedi Slimane had the job in the bag: He has a track record at Saint Laurent and Celine (which looked not unlike a French version of Gucci when he left). His current free agent status made Slimane seem like a strong contender.
The surprise of Demna’s appointment seems to say that Gucci CEO Stefano Cantino and Kering Deputy CEO in charge of Brand Development Francesca Bellettini are betting on creative risk, on big ideas, on statement making shows, and not only on bankable clothes and accessories. That represents a turnaround from the thinking of the former executives at Gucci, who endorsed a more classic, “no-season” approach when they hired De Sarno.
Demna’s final collection for Balenciaga does poke a hole in this theory, though. Understanding now that he designed it knowing he would be stepping into a new role, we could posit he was testing out a new kind of design vocabulary, the “standard clothes,” he talked about backstage, ahead of swapping houses.
Let’s remind ourselves of what he said: “Costume is (a term) that I have a problem with a lot, because it doesn’t make me dream, to be honest. What makes me dream is the perfect suit that I can wear. That’s the hardest thing to do, and what I want professionally.” He continued: “I don’t want another type of dream that I will never, you know, relate to. Do I really want to do something that is pretending to be fashion just because it grabs attention because of it? Or do I want someone to tell me, ‘this is the best coat I’ve been wearing for the last five years?’”
That comment didn’t sound all that different from what De Sarno said when he was newly installed. “I started from the wardrobe,” he noted, “because I felt the urgency to put together the pieces that I like and that I don’t find.” Gucci, remember, has been a popular status symbol since the jet-set adopted it in the ’70s; though it makes luxury products, it has no pretensions to the haute couture system. The remit is just different (which is one reason why the Michele orchestrated Gucci “hacking” of Balenciaga was so rich.)
Or, or, or, it could be that Demna’s final Balenciaga show was a sort of palate cleanser, a collection of almost anonymous clothes (despite the logos) that wiped the slate clean before the agenda-setting collection he’s preparing for his coming out as Gucci’s new creative director.
Bellettini said this in the Kering press release: “Demna’s profound understanding of contemporary culture, coupled with his extensive experience in conceiving visionary projects, has established him as one of the most influential and accomplished creatives of his generation. His appointment as artistic director is the perfect catalyst to reignite Gucci’s creative energy.”
Can a designer be a revelation the second time around? That’s a question that not just Demna will be heading down next season. Fashion history presents us with mixed results, but Demna will have the fortunes of Gucci at his back; it has five times the revenue of Balenciaga. Imagine the shows! We’ll definitely be watching.
