susannanicoletti.substack.com
2025: The Demna Effect Doesn't Exist
- The Demna Effect doesn’t exist and the “Rien à Voir” mood of the industry

There was
a sort of religious wait for the Gucci designer announcement, a liberating moment when the most loyal press, analysts and shareholders could take a breath and say
“Great choice! Gucci is back”.
The night before I was working on a project following a day of calls with Milan for some urgent adjustments to be put in place asap and as usual and I continued to receive messages from many friends “it’s Zambernardi”, “it’s Hedi, for sure” and
at a certain point everybody started to write me “it’s Demna”. I didn’t write about it even if it was certain, I don’t care about scoops, and I don’t look for these news.
I am never impressed by these present creative directors because I find that, with the exception of Jonathan Anderson who I find very close to Karl Lagerfeld somehow, they are inconsistent and volatile, able to jump on their own taste and making it an obligation for a brand that has nothing to do with it.
Generally speaking, we are living in a
“Rien à Voir” age.
- The designers have nothing to do with the brands they work for. Very often they also live far away from the offices and HQ, they don’t know the people working with them and they don’t care about anything but their own wealth and well being.
- The design office has nothing to do with the final customer, they don’t know who they are, if lucky they work on fictitious brands personas and they love exchanging messages from their secluded gardens
- The CEO has nothing to do with the designer, they frequently fight with each other, mostly on style decisions on which the boss of the bosses is not knowledgeable. Too often the CEO continues to do the previous job: micromanaging communication or merchandising or buying or finance, lacking the effort to develop an helicopter view. See John Idol vs Donatella Versace as the latest example of this blood bath impacting hardly on the brands robustness.
- The supply chain directors are wild and free in the Far West and nobody can control them.
- The marketing has nothing to do with Kotler and Kapferer, they don’t even know who they are
- The HR are just pen-pushers checking entrances and exits of the employees and banning smart working and human working conditions
- The CEOs of the CEOs main job is to still work on the brand they supposedly left and checking employees expenses trying to deny reimburses with the biggest acrimony, imposing performance reviews on which they will never be measured on, instead of setting up the best brand management ever to solve the issues.
- Retail directors have nothing to do with Wholesale directors and, even less, E-commerce and marketplace directors. They just compete with each other for peanuts sales.
- The ownership is busy trying to put their heads under the sand living in denial or to control family dynamics that are unmanageable
- The financial analysts and the overpaid consultants have nothing to do with the reality of the business because they never put a foot on the field. All running here and there like headless chickens (I am quoting a dear member of this amazing community).
- Shareholders just want to make money out of a manufacturing industry that is not scalable like junk bonds and they never learned from Madoff. They have nothing to do with the industry.
So, considering the global situation, we can clearly state that
no, there is no Demna effect because he is, like everybody else, totally irrelevant for the business of fashion. His collections will be available in the spring 2026, De Sarno collection rarely hit the shop floor in two years, while mysteriously Michele developed and launched the first collections in a few weeks and it was a “blockbuster”.
In one year the brand and the group risk to disappear.
At this point a doubt:
is Kering just taking time and slowing down the already acknowledged downfall and disaster? Is this just a way to distract the attention from the self-inflicted, nosediving business? Are they aware that there is no solution and that the conditions of the group are worst than what it is said?
Just some questions and doubts. There are seasoned top executives in the group, are they unable to manage and drive the business out of the sandpit or are they just consciously putting a patch on an upcoming disaster?
Appointing whatever designer, creating buzz around their miracle balm they can spread all over the brand and reset the sales is not the solution, it’s a further complication.
The Kering drop of the share price has not happened overnight, it’s taking place since years. Now it’s just accelerating because the group is exhausted.
In the past year the share value dropped of around -50%. There is no Demna effect, only distracted management since years.