For His Gucci Debut, Demna Brings the Brand Back to Body-First Basics

Skintight black slacks, thin logo belts, sheer white minidresses done in hosiery fabric, male models walking the runway in white t-shirts that were slipping off their bodies...! This was Demna’s first full Gucci collection for fall 2026, which the Georgian designer dubbed Gucci Primavera. Arguably one of Milan Fashion Week’s biggest debuts, the show was held in the darkened Palazzo delle Scintille, which had been filled with replicas of statues from the Uffizi Museum in Florence, where Guccio Gucci founded the label in 1921. The clothes—hedonistic, body-first, full of everyday coed basics with a sensual twist—were worn by a cast of super-famous faces, from Kate Moss (who closed the show in a glittering maxidress with cutouts and a whale-tale thong) to Emily Ratajkowski and Karlie Kloss. The fall 2026 range follows Demna’s La Famiglia Gucci screening at MFW last season, where actors deep in character wore his designs.

Some of those characters showed up on the catwalk—nearly all of them wearing a series of tight garments that revealed pecs, nips, hip bones, thighs, and beyond. Mariacarla Boscono, Gabriette, Alex Consani, even emerging musicians Nettspend and Fakemink appeared on the runway. But it was Moss who shut the show down, in her look that was heavily reminiscent of Tom Ford-era Gucci. In fact, much of the fall 2026 collection recalled Ford’s celebrated fall 1995, fall 1996, and spring 1997 collections, which focused on minimalist bodycon silhouettes. Even the show’s lighting seemed to be a reference to Ford’s Gucci tenure, when the designer used a spotlight in a darkened room to follow the models down the runway at his debut show. (It makes sense—Demna cited his visits to the archive as inspiration for fall.)

The Balenciaga alum described his debut—which comes nearly one year after he was named creative director at Gucci, following Sabato de Sarno—as “understanding the gucciness of Gucci.” He also wrote in the show notes that he doesn’t want the collection to be intellectual. “Gucci is a superbrand that is as much about pragmatic product as it is about emotion,” he wrote. “Gucci is drama, passion, excess, contradiction, love and hate, triumph and collapse, pride and vulnerability, perseverance, chaos, genius. Everything you could say about a human being you can say about Gucci. I see Gucci as a person. Someone with a wild, unforgettable past and unmistakable codes.”

“In general, I intend for Gucci to become lighter, softer, more refined, more elaborate, more emotional, even senseless sometimes,” he concluded.