The Circus Behind Demna Gvasalia
I watched the latest Gucci Primavera show while running on the treadmill, precisely at 2 p.m. the very moment it debuted. The timing could not have been more appropriate: each aggressively tight silhouette, every exaggerated thong, every attempt at “sexual irony” provoked a cocktail of disgust and frustration within me. Yet, strangely, these emotions worked as fuel. They pushed me harder, drove my strides longer, made the treadmill feel less like exercise and more like a moment in which one sweats out the absurdity of contemporary luxury. Demna’s work operates like a form of cardio for the intellect… exhausting, irritating, but perversely stimulating. The shift is undeniable. Not in the grand way that accompanied Tom Ford’s arrival in the 1990s, when the house resurrected into a vessel of velvet sensuality, but like realizing halfway through a party that the host is laughing at the guests rather than with them. The references to the Ford era are unmistakable: exposed G-strings, late-90s sultriness, the presence of Kate Moss closing the show like a ghost from Gucci’s golden age. Yet what should feel erotic instead feels like a parody.
Demna has built his career on the art of provocation. At Balenciaga, he perfected a formula that transformed banality into spectacle: IKEA bags retailing for thousands, garments made to resemble the debris of everyday life, and a campaign involving children that reminded the industry just how thin the line between provocation and grotesque can be. The joke, of course, is always his point. What makes his arrival at Gucci so unsettling is that Gucci historically relied on the opposite philosophy. The house built its legacy on Florentine craft, cinematic glamour, and the sense that beauty itself could be a form of power. Frida Giannini, often underestimated by critics, maintained precisely that balance: a Gucci that was glamorous without descending into caricature.
The new collection attempts to resurrect the eroticism of the Ford era, but what emerges instead feels distorted. The silhouettes cling with almost harsh explicitness, the styling moves towards the deliberately tacky, and the atmosphere occasionally resembles a simulation of the 365 party-girl fantasy. A girl who dreams of wearing a Gucci bra while doing poppers with her gay best friend before posting the entire evening on Instagram at 3:17 a.m. Needless to say, this same girl is watching TikTok tutorials on how to look “rich” for under $50 in the backseat of an Uber Black. How ironic.
Demna would likely argue that this is intentional, that the clothes are meant to reflect the ecosystem of modern fashion culture. His runways resemble exhibits populated by characters: the influencer who mistakes visibility for taste, the editor who dresses like a visual thesis, or the club kid who inherited a trust fund and calls it rebellion. In that sense, the show operates as a meme rendered into fabrics. If a designer consistently treats fashion as a joke, eventually the clothes themselves begin to look like the punchline.
It is difficult to ignore that this is precisely why Kering hired him. Gucci’s recent turbulence made them believe that it required not merely a designer but a spectacle generator. Demna excels at spectacle. He understands the mechanics of virality better than most in the industry. The house did not hire a creative who would innovate their legacy… it hired an algorithm. What I find most concerning is that Demna only designs for one brand. He turned Balenciaga into a mirror of his previous label Vetements, and now there is the suspicion that Gucci may simply become Balenciaga in Italian leather. It is the equivalent of a DJ playing the same remix in different clubs and insisting it is a new song.
It is not difficult to imagine Demna eventually sharing a conceptual neighborhood with Olivier Rousteing—another designer whose aesthetics used to thrive on spectacle, volume, and relentless visibility. The comparison may seem cruel, but criticism has a taste for irony. None of this suggests that Demna is incompetent. On the contrary, he is extraordinarily skilled at transforming the absurdities of fashion culture into a product. But brilliance and vulgarity have always existed in close proximity, and Gucci is currently walking that narrow line. Demna, as one can suspect, prefers to watch from across the room, smiling slightly, as if his collections were the setup to a joke only he fully understands.
WRITTEN BY FREDDY ESPINAL