Demna Gvasalia - Designer, Creative Director of Gucci

[reese06]

Interesting promotion for Demna. I’ve always enjoyed his work at Balenciaga—he’s consistently delivered desirable products, which is why he’s been so successful. He’s capable of much more than just streetwear, but the question is whether he’ll explore that at Gucci. I don’t think he’ll bring exactly what he did at Balenciaga to Gucci, since Balenciaga has always been about silhouette, and he’s remained true to that even in his streetwear. I think he’ll explore Gucci’s history in a unique way.

He’s definitely a wild card choice, but far from the worst. He knows how to create moments, produce great products that sell, and if you look at his early collections, he can do sexy and edgy very well, it’ll be interesting to see where he takes it.

Also, I can’t take this place seriously when people act like Haider—who couldn’t sustain his own brand or have a successful tenure at a major house—is the ideal choice for another big brand like Tom Ford. Meanwhile, Demna, who has a proven track record, has created commercial and cultural success, and even withstood scandal and turned it around, gets the opposite reaction. It’s a double standard.

 

[GIVENCHYlover]

Even though his work for Balenciaga was a commercial success, few designers have had a "wow" moment at the next brand they worked for.

A few examples:
- Nicolas Ghesquière
- Riccardo Tisci
- Daniel Lee
- Alessandro Michele
- Haider Ackermann
- Kim Jones after decent collections at LV
- even John Galliano until his last Margiela collection

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

Interesting promotion for Demna. I’ve always enjoyed his work at Balenciaga—he’s consistently delivered desirable products, which is why he’s been so successful. He’s capable of much more than just streetwear, but the question is whether he’ll explore that at Gucci. I don’t think he’ll bring exactly what he did at Balenciaga to Gucci, since Balenciaga has always been about silhouette, and he’s remained true to that even in his streetwear. I think he’ll explore Gucci’s history in a unique way.

He’s definitely a wild card choice, but far from the worst. He knows how to create moments, produce great products that sell, and if you look at his early collections, he can do sexy and edgy very well, it’ll be interesting to see where he takes it.

Also, I can’t take this place seriously when people act like Haider—who couldn’t sustain his own brand or have a successful tenure at a major house—is the ideal choice for another big brand like Tom Ford. Meanwhile, Demna, who has a proven track record, has created commercial and cultural success, and even withstood scandal and turned it around, gets the opposite reaction. It’s a double standard.

Interesting point of view.
It is undeniable that Demna's Balenciaga has had a huge impact in fashion and it was a commercial success.
In this sense, if we see as a logical step for Jonathan Anderson to move from Loewe to Dior, the same should apply for Demna's internal evolution to Gucci.

General scepticism might come from the fact that very often you couldn't differentiate his proposals for Vetements and Balenciaga (even when he officially left Vetements!)
He has reduced his aesthetic to something very recognizable but also limited, and the impact that had at the beginning has faded.
You cannot say the same about Jonathan.

I was very surprised with the announcement and I am curious to see what Demna does for Gucci.
But he needs to substantially change his proposal in order to succeed.

 

[yslforever]

Thanks for the insight, very good points.

I truely think that was the case of Daniel Lee at Burberry: he did applauded collections, which I personnally disliked, but they got lots of attention, and he offered the company tons of designs and goods to produce and sell.
BUT it was the CEO and C-suit decision to raise the price like crazy and I think, if they would have gone contemporary pricing instead of mega-exclusive luxury pricing, we could have seen lots of silly ducks trousers and bags in the streets (if they were 600 instead of 3 200).
And everybody would have hailed Daniel's tenure as influential and successful.
The failure of Daniel Lee at Burberry is 90% on the CEO.

Same thing at Ferragamo, the 1st runway of Maximilian Davis got people interested by the novelty but immediately prices go higher than Celine RTW and extremely limited and chaotic distribution of his runway pieces and RTW.

It matters how good and desirable are the runway and the CD, but, in the end, if the CEOs and shareholders don't follow, or adapt poorly, there won't be $$ results, and that's out of reach of nearly all creatives.