Gucci is going alfresco in Florence because it awaits buzzy new inventive boss

If rebirth is what you wish to have then Florence, house of the Renaissance, is a superb position to start out.

Gucci, which has simply switched designers after a duration of plunging gross sales – 24% down within the closing quarter of 2024, and 25% down within the first of 2025 – confirmed its newest assortment in a catwalk festival that started within the 15th-century Palazzo Settimanni, the place the actors Paul Mescal, Viola Davis and Jeff Goldblum, a Florentine resident, had front-row seats, and persisted out of doors to the place Gucci workers and native style fanatics, seated in bars and cafes, watched an alfresco lap of the display. If you hit the factory-reset button in Florence, and make it glamorous, are you able to name it a renaissance button?

Gucci has its arms crossed. In the latest Lyst index, which tracks virtual engagement to evaluate which names are main the craze dialog, Gucci fell 5 puts to No 17, an ignominious decline for a proud Italian logo. After the abrupt departure of the dressmaker Sabato de Sarno, let pass simply two weeks prior to Milan style week in February, the home awaits the coming of its buzzy new rent Demna, who will go away his put up at Balenciaga this summer time and provide his first Gucci assortment later this 12 months.

An out of doors tournament is a dangerous transfer, and a thunderstorm hours prior to had the highest brass jittery. But when the solar got here out for an excellent Tuscan golden hour, it felt just like the good fortune of Gucci, not able to catch a ruin for the previous two years, may have grew to become. The design workforce had produced an upbeat parade of Gucci’s biggest hits.

Jewel-coloured brocade mini-shift attire, kaftans slashed to the navel and luxurious faux-fur chubbies leant into the charismatic jet set 1960s glamour this is foundational to Gucci – suppose Elizabeth Taylor filming Cleopatra in Rome, or Jackie Onassis on vacation in Capri – whilst jodhpur silhouettes nodded to the equestrian heritage of the house of the horsebit idler.

There have been forward-facing hat tricks to the tastes of the incoming boss, in exaggerated quarterback shoulders and outsized coats, appears which Demna has made his signature all through his decade at Balenciaga. And within the interim, there was once an astute sprinkling of easy-sell equipment: belts with double and unmarried G {hardware}, outsized shades and eyecatching painted shell jewelry.

Florence, the place Guccio Gucci based his logo in 1921, was once a tactical retreat to house turf, however Gucci is probably not licking its wounds for lengthy. Demna – an acclaimed however debatable Marmite appointment – is a punchy throw of the cube that goals at getting Gucci again at the entrance foot as a manner chief. Owners Kering know that Gucci’s best possible eras had been its maximum audacious: the 1990s, when Tom Ford reinvented its old-timey affluence right into a sexualised sophistication that made consumers far and wide the arena pass susceptible on the knees, and a decade in the past when Alessandro Michele’s exuberant and radical gender-fluid, vintage-curious, humour-led aesthetic made the logo significant for a brand new era.

Demna, who makes use of most effective his first title professionally, loves to ruffle feathers. He as soon as changed a Paris catwalk display with a specifically made episode of The Simpsons, and brought about outrage promoting pre-scuffed grimy running shoes for £400 and a top rate leather-based tackle Ikea’s well-known blue Frakta buying groceries tote for £1,600.

A kid refugee who fled Georgia as a kid, he was once one of the vital first to make use of the craze week highlight to turn beef up for Ukraine. In 2023, an promoting marketing campaign that includes youngsters keeping teddy bears wearing bondage equipment brought about an international backlash, an error of style and judgment for which he apologised.

The Kering deputy CEO, Francesca Bellettini, has described a temper of optimism at Gucci. On Demna’s appointment she insisted that “the work that he is going to do is building on what we have been doing … not throwing everything away and starting from scratch, absolutely not”. But she added that “after the nomination of Demna, I never received so many CVs of creative people and designers who want to join the team”.