Demna Wants You to Start Guccimaxxing
Demna is a maestro of attention, and the show was a bet that Gucci can’t be redefined by piles of bankable product, though there were some surefire It bags swinging from the crooks of elbows. Demna is instead trying to generate desire through hardcore attitude. Said the designer: “It’s part of Gucci to celebrate yourself, to be in love, to flirt, all of those things. To be bold, to be daring, to be kind of fearless in some way.”
In fact, the clothes felt like accessories to the swaggerful vibe. Many models walked with a fuck-you strut after Demna instructed them to act like exaggerated versions of themselves. Esdeekid’s fellow underground rap stars Fakemink and Nettspend hit the runway in skater-like skinny jeans and monogrammed fanny packs; the former stopped on the runway at one point to pull out his phone for a few seconds of lazy scrolling.
“There are a lot of people on the runway and also in the audience today that I listen to their music, I consume their art,” Demna said backstage. “I really like what they do and I feel like one of my responsibilities at Gucci is to bring cultural relevance to it, and the cultural relevance always comes from underground culture, not from the mainstream, even for a big brand.”
The rappers were two of the Davids to the Goliaths in the show, lithe and skinny just like Gucci’s new body-con silhouette, a big change for the designer whose signature shape at Balenciaga was voluminous and concealing. Demna has a way of capturing the zeitgeist because he designs what he feels, and backstage he confirmed that he—like so many of us in the age of looksmaxxing and GLP-1s—has been thinking about his own relationship with his body. “It feels actually very liberating,” Demna said about designing sexy clothing. “I think I finally allowed myself to do that. It’s also because of my relationship to myself, to my own body, to the way I see myself. I want to feel like that. I want to feel sexy, I want to feel attractive.”
There was a slinky seductiveness to some of the best suits Demna has ever made, which had a fluid drape and liquidy sheen, followed by a handful of barefoot models with gymnast physiques wearing clingy, sparkly pajama sets. To bring it home, Kate Moss reprised her role as the minx-y Tom Ford-era Gucci muse, prowling down the catwalk in a shimmery gown with a plunging back that revealed a bedazzled, monogrammedG-string.
That was pure Guccimaxxing, a movement that now has countless new converts. “I loved it! It was so evil,” said Zamiri. “This is all the stuff from the ’90s that I hunt down and buy, and now we can just walk into the Gucci store!” added Devon Lee Carlson.
