Milan Fashion Week: Gucci wants everyone in fashion to think like a shopper

It was at the moment that Ed Harris, playing a Dominick Dunne surrogate in a natty Gucci suit, began to feel the affects of a dubious calming tincture with which his champagne had been laced, and looked up at Demi Moore, dressed in a brocade of Gucci sequins, and asked with the dim-witted intensity that chemically enhanced philosophizing allows, “What are hands?!” - that I realised, Wait, yes: This fashion stuff is supposed to be fun!

Harris was on-screen, playing alongside Moore, Edward Norton, Alia Shawkat, Elliot Page and Keke Palmer in a short film co-directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn (Babygirl, Bodies Bodies Bodies) titled The Tiger - a teaser in place of the full runway debut to come next spring, intended to sate consumer appetites and investor concerns.

Gucci is in urgent need of a turnaround after a years-long slump that saw 2025’s second-quarter sales decline 25 per cent, and parent company Kering appointed Demna, previously the provocateur at Balenciaga (another Kering brand), to give the star label a defibrillation. Demna started only in mid-July, but Gucci needs buzz to supplant its woeful business narrative, and it needs products in stores; the designer is already delivering both.

In addition to most of the film’s stars, cultural heavyweights such as Serena Williams and Gwyneth Paltrow were also in the audience, dressed in Gucci: the ole tried-and-true celebrity endorsement works for a reason.

Even more impressive, many pieces will be in 10 Gucci stores around the world on Thursday, local time. “Gucci is a big, big company,” Demna said. “I knew there was an industrial base, but I didn’t know how solid that was.”

Back in July, when he and the Gucci honchos started discussing putting clothes in the stores days after the show, “I didn’t think it would be possible.”

This is not a see-now-buy-now marketing ploy but a response to desperate commercial realities. After a two-year experiment that saw designer Sabato De Sarno churn out blah coats and party dresses under the banner of a meaningless deep red he insisted stood for a ravenous desire called “ancora,” Gucci needs something to get global consumers excited about the label: a beacon of jet-set style, with a touch of nouveau riche tackiness. Ancora is no-more-ah, and Kering (which also owns Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta) needs that brand name to mean something again, even if Demna was keen to insist that this is just a preview of his vision.

Demna, looking more effervescent than he has in recent memory, also needed a reset. At Balenciaga, he soared by showing the world that hoodies and T-shirts and sneakers, not skirt suits and tasteful couture, were the language of fashion aspiration - until a scandal involving two unseemly ad campaigns put pressure on the brand and, I think, his creativity.

He appears to have shed the weight off his shoulders. Kering boss François-Henri Pinault gave him an enormous grin, plus a hug and kiss. As the lights went down, Moore clutched the designer’s hand. “And how are you today?” she asked, giving his hand a squeeze. “You look wonderful.”

The film plots what we probably all imagine rich people are doing on a daily basis: deranged titans of industry sit around an opulent dining table, saying nonsensical stuff and blithely talking about buying California and owning the Food and Drug Administration (uh, gulp) while wearing absolutely outlandish outfits. (You can watch it now on Gucci’s YouTube.) All the characters, from assistants to a pair of judgmental cousins, are dressed in Gucci. “I didn’t want this to feel like an ad,” said Demna, and it didn’t, although the clothes provided some charming visual punch lines.

The premiere was the climax of an effort that began on Monday, when Demna released images of the collection, called La Famiglia: all cartoonish archetypes from Italian life, like the vacant yet enviable influencer, that obnoxious guy in a Speedo on the beach, the flighty hostess telling you “We’re very casual here” while making you feel absurdly on edge. The designer previously lived in Switzerland full-time, traveling back and forth to Paris for Balenciaga, but is now based in Milan and said he enjoys being away from the perfection of Paris: “Everybody is uptight, a little bit.”

The bright and poppy collection, distinct from the nihilistic tendencies that defined his decade at Balenciaga, epitomized how Gucci might stand for a tender view of the vulgarities of wealth, which are, strangely enough, kinda timeless. (People often objected to Demna’s Balenciaga clothes by saying that they seemed to be a joke on rich people. I don’t know when we got so sanctimonious about wealthy people looking ridiculous. If they want to look nuts, who in the world are we to stop them?)

Demna excels at spectacles in which fashion and entertainment collide, making the pompous world of designer clothes seem enormous and totally accessible. In 2021, he staged a similar, much grander Balenciaga concept: a “red carpet” runway that culminated in an episode of The Simpsons with Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and the rest of the gang dressed in Balenciaga.

Tuesday’s affair was more intimate, and less ambitious. (Something to keep in mind as we race through nearly 10 more designer debuts: These people aren’t going to reinvent pants here.) As a feathered Serena Williams brushed past Spike Jonze to air-kiss Anna Wintour, and a logoed-out Paltrow caught up with old pal Moore, Demna’s court-jester-meets-Machiavelli tendencies came into focus: Are these very famous people in Gucci feathers and logos the show? Or are we, the gawking onlookers in our workaday duds?

Perhaps that sums up the designer’s philosophy: Fashion is a game we all play, whether you believe you’re playing dress-up or not. Many brands seem bogged down by conservative wearable “wardrobe basics,” but that’s not what gets people inspired to dress or spend money, especially when all that stuff is available at COS or Zara.

It’s fun that gets you to open your wallet, or so Demna surmises. He wants you to think like a shopper, not a critic. (Guess I’m out of a job!)

The average person buying a handbag or splurging on a wild dress for a party (like a Gucci-logo-print caftan trimmed in beige ostrich feathers, which seemed like a big eyebrow wag at quiet luxury) is not studying up on designer mood boards and interrogating whether Demna “properly interpreted the house codes,” which is one of the favoured means of interrogating fashion on TikTok and Instagram.

Much more realistic: A person steps into Gucci’s Fifth Avenue or City Center boutique, and a sales person approaches and explains that there’s a new designer (ooh) who is taking all the ideas of his Gucci predecessors, like sexy leather jackets and contessa-inspired caftans (cool), and making clothes that feel outlandish but delightful. (Got it!) And here’s a handbag for you to consider, in case you want to come along for a ride.

You’re seized by an irrational, crazy frame of mind: the fallacy that having that pricey amulet of a purse in a crisp paper shopping bag will change your entire life. You’re convinced enough, seduced enough, that you hand over your card. Bills be damned! And while life mostly stays the same after you walk out the big glass boutique door, each time you reach for the bag, you remember that brief promise of a completely improved you.

© 2025 , The Washington Post.