Gucci’s new designer needs to prove everyone wrong
Demna’s provocative work for Balenciaga rubbed many the wrong way. But he could offer a struggling fashion house a jolt of the rude energy it needs.
March 15, 2025 at 8:30 a.m. EDT
Analysis by Rachel Tashjian
The roles at fashion houses change so often that hardly any new hirefeels shocking anymore. But “shock” is the only word that can describe the reaction to Gucci’s decision to appoint Demna — the provocateur who remixed the global wardrobe of sweatpants and T-shirts into luxury staples and made Ikea totes into $2,000 it-bags at Balenciaga — as its new head designer.
Comments on fashion publications’ Instagram posts announcing the appointment are burning with ire: “NO PLEASE!” “why god why” and “RIP GUCCI” were just a sampling of
the thoughts on Vogue’s account. “Cryin in a brutal way” read a caption on a TikTok of Demna designs. “Everybody’s pissed that this guy is going to Gucci,” said one TikTok explainer.
The general dismay spilled far beyond the musings of the commentariat class. On Friday morning, shares of Kering, which owns Gucci and Balenciaga as well as Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and McQueen, fell by 13 percent in Paris. The company was on track for its worst day in almost a year, Reuters reported, a surprise given that Kering has been in financial free-fall, with
its sales declining 12 percent in the final quarter of 2024. Kering, of which Gucci comprises nearly half of sales, has been in such dire straits that it abruptly parted with previous creative director Sabato de Sarno in early February. De Sarno had been tasked with bringing Gucci into a world of quiet luxury following the wild and, at times, commercially resistant work of Alessandro Michele (now at Valentino), but his vision failed to gel for customers and critics.
Demna — born Demna Gvasalia in Soviet-era Georgia, but now known officially by his first name only — is certainly a departure. His designs have long been controversial and conversation-starting, including a collection of menacing “power suits” shown in a United Nations-esque room, a runway partially submerged in water that felt like a confrontation of fashion’s Titanic-like hubris, or a show staged in a violent snow globe shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that, depending on whom you asked, either empathized with or exploited the invaded country’s pain.
But following the scandal around a pair of unrelated photo shoots that seemed to make allusions to the sexualization of children, Balenciaga began to lose steam. (Balenciaga’s financial performance is not broken out in Kering’s reports but grouped with McQueen under the category of “Other Houses.” Sales of that division were down four percent in the fourth quarter of last year.)
Lately, Demna’s shows have seemed frozen in a mode of cynical, even nihilistic commitment to sweatpants and unappealing suits. Do we really need or want our clothes to tell us that wealth and power are dumb and ugly?
The Gucci news was so rattling that it upstaged Thursday morning’s announcement of Donatella Versace’s retirement. The audaciouslyblonde designer succeeded her brother Gianni after his 1997 murder and emerged as one of the few household-name garmentos. She will become “chief brand ambassador” — a title usually reserved for celebrities contracted to wear a house’s clothes on the red carpet, although Versace was always her label’s best cheerleader.
Dario Vitale, a secret weapon behind the viral sensation (and Prada brand) Miu Miu, will now lead design. That marks an exciting change: Versace can sit front row as her fabulous self, while a creative with an eye for remixing vintage can breathe new life into a brand that invented fashion as popular culture by figuring out the right sensational celebrity (Madonna, J. Lo, Beyoncé) to wear the right sensational dress. This announcement comes just days after Jil Sander, the minimalist house which, like Gucci and Versace, hosts its runway shows in Milan, appointed Bally’s Simone Bellotti as its new creative lead. Milan Fashion Week will be a hot ticket come September.
But what to make of this Gucci surprise? Kering’s deputy chief executive, Francesca Bellettini, suggested in her statement that Demna’s pop cultural resonance made him the right choice:
“Demna’s profound understanding of contemporary culture, coupled with his extensive experience in conceiving visionary projects, has established him as one of the most influential and accomplished creatives of his generation,” she wrote. “His appointment as Artistic Director is the perfect catalyst to reignite Gucci’s creative energy.”
Still, Demna has got his work cut out for him.
Even his supporters — who rightfully recognize him as the most innovative and influential designer of his generation — feel his work has become stuck or dated. In choosing Demna, Kering is, perhaps admirably, choosing risk and provocation. Hedi Slimane made it rain at Celine with his crisp bourgeois designs, and former deputy designers from Prada were frequently mentioned in gossip columns.
In these conservative times, that boldness is to be celebrated. But Demna will need to find a new language, and consider whether the world is ready for designs that many see as cynical or blindly commercial.
He will need to prove everyone wrong — and that would be thrilling to watch.
THE WASHINGTON POST
Or at least, somebody from their circles must have... 
