Can Fashion’s Bad Boy Bring Hollywood Sex Appeal Back to Gucci?
In the midst of a corporate turnaround, the brand revealed a vision for its future led by its new creative director Demna
Can Gucci, once the luxury conglomerate Kering’s cash cow, regain its Hollywood sparkle?
Gucci’s new creative director rolled out a lush brown carpet this week for a star-studded short-film premiere at Milan’s Palazzo Mezzanotte, the headquarters of the Italian stock exchange. Guests arrived in town cars for a preview of reformed bad boy designer Demna’s vision for Kering’s flagging luxury brand: a 33-minute sardonically comedic film about a drug-fueled birthday party with a big-budget cast including Demi Moore, Keke Palmer, Kendall Jenner, Elliot Page and Edward Norton. Earlier, the brand drummed up nostalgia with a lookbook of archival styles edited by Demna, an expert in mass-marketing.
“There are so many different Guccis,” said the mononymic Georgian designer in an interview at the screening of “The Tiger.” Since he started at the house in July after an influential 10-year run at Balenciaga, he’s been weeding through its past in order to begin again.
Can Demna succeed where his beleaguered predecessor, Sabato De Sarno, could not? Gucci’s revenue declined 25% in the first quarter of 2025, another in a long line of double-digit dips. Demna’s canny accessories and streetwear-heavy work for its Kering sibling Balenciaga quadrupled the company’s sales. But Gucci, with over 7.7 billion euros in revenue in 2024, almost $9 billion at current exchange, is still a much bigger business. Demna will need to recapture some of the product pizazz of previous Gucci designer Alessandro Michele, and ideally the uncomplicated sex appeal of Tom Ford.
At the film’s screening, cars dropped VIPs into a pit filled with photographers at carefully timed intervals. The most pivotal arrivals were not Moore, in a shimmering gold gown, or 1990s Tom Ford-era muse Gwyneth Paltrow, but Kering’s chairman François-Henri Pinault with the group’s new chief executive Luca de Meo.
De Meo joined Kering this month from Renault, where he nearly doubled the stock price and became known for his hands-on, highly visible management style. The executive embraces publicity: At Renault he was frequently photographed, and he appeared in a jovial walk-and-talk video on his first day at Kering. Demna’s Hollywood moment was a coming-out party for both him and Francesca Bellettini, the longtime Kering lieutenant who was recently named chief executive of Gucci. Bellettini and Demna, laughing together with Spike Jonze, who directed the short film with Halina Reijn, looked off to a jubilant start.
The first collection, a romp through Gucci archetypes such as the Jackie-O-ish little red coat, beige logo pieces, glamorous gowns and androgynous suits, is Demna’s edit of the brand’s history. He adjusted some shapes but didn’t actually design new product. “I felt more like a curator or editor doing this,” he said, adding that it was helpful for him to “do research before building a new vision.” He continued, “I needed to understand what Gucci is in terms of allure, in terms of style.” He said he was now excited to start the real work of designing his first true collection, to be presented in spring 2026.
In the meantime, leaning on the archives is a way to keep clients satisfied during the transitional period before Demna’s new designs become available. The archival collection shown this week will be available for sale on Sept. 25 at 10 Gucci stores globally. In recent months, Gucci has showcased house classics like the flora print, silk scarves, horsebit accessories and bamboo-handled bags. Demna, who reinvigorated Balenciaga’s Le City bag, will surely continue to play with these signatures and more. In July, he said at his last Balenciaga show that he was looking forward to having a deeper trove of house codes to play with.
Demna ceded creative control to Jonze and Reijn for “The Tiger,” which was both funnier and more poignant than most brand films. Moore plays Barbara Gucci, the head of Gucci International (who also runs the state of California) and matriarch of a sprawling dysfunctional family. At her birthday party, they take a mysterious drug and opine on the nature of capitalism at a Los Angeles estate. After the screening, Jonze and Reijn were curious about the reception, asking how everyone liked it. For the most part, viewers seemed giddy and relieved to be laughing (fashion week can get weirdly serious). The film’s co-writer Alyssa McAuliffe explained that the team wanted to explore identity and the myth of perfection—heady themes, but couched in entertainment.
Demna, who opened up the historic house of Balenciaga to youth and pop culture, will need to enliven Gucci across several demographics to help it compete with LVMH megabrands such as Dior and Louis Vuitton. It’s telling that Moore and Paltrow, in their 60s and 50s respectively, are key early muses, alongside younger models including Jenner and Alex Consani. Demna’s Gucci will need to go mass—without losing its soul.