Demna might be in for a baptism of fire at Gucci. On Wednesday, it was announced that the Italian brand’s first-quarter sales had fallen 25 percent. Kering’s (Gucci’s parent company) stocks also fell 12% last month when Demna, who, with his avant-garde streetwear sensibility, was a rogue choice for the house, was appointed the next artistic director.
But Gucci’s numbers can’t all be blamed on Demna’s appointment: high fashion is in a death spiral rn. Before Trump went to town on tariffs, we were already amid a luxury slowdown due to inflation, mushrooming interest rates, the cost of living crisis, and the repercussions of brands hiking their prices to take advantage of post-pandemic spending. The global luxury market lost around 50 million customers in 2024, while Gucci’s sales in particular nosedived 24 percent in 2024’s fourth quarter.
When he officially joins Gucci in July (though we won’t see his first collection til September), Demna will be challenged with turning those numbers around. But given the stock drop after his announcement, how, exactly, will he do that?
Tbf, Demna incited a meteoric rise in Balenci’s revenues: the house made €200 million during his first year in 2015, but by 2021, HSBC estimated that figure had risen to €1.76 billion. So can he do the same for Gucci? Demna’s tenure at Balenciaga was transformative — an ode to irony and streetwear that was a far cry from the house’s signature codes. And that was precisely why it worked (and won him a CFDA award). Gucci, however, is adamant that the artistic director’s focus will be building on the house’s DNA, especially what the team has built over the past two years, presumably in an attempt to retain the brand’s existing client base. “Demna is going to build on what has been done so far…But you know very well that the success of Gucci comes when tradition is blended with a strong fashion authority. So the work that he is going to do is building on what we have been doing and not throwing everything away and starting from scratch, absolutely not,” said Kering’s deputy CEO, Francesca Bellettini.
To give credit where credit’s due, Demna was a pro at nodding to Balenciaga’s history: his couture collections embodied the brand’s OG opulence, his first collection for the house featured the stockings and vinyl raincoats embraced by Cristobal himself, and, post-scandal, he released a stripped-back, demure collection via elegant draping and sharp (but still oversized) tailoring, that called to mind the brand’s archival collections. So he’ll have no problem tapping into Gucci’s quintessentially Italian, monogram-heavy codes.
But if Kering wants to see numbers anywhere close to the spike he incited at Balenci, they’ll have to give him the freedom he needs to shock, surprise, and satirize. He’ll also need to be granted the grace to move far enough away from Alessandro Michele’s granny chic aesthetic, to ensnare the streetwear aficionados he caters to so well at Vetements and Balenciaga.
It’s also key that despite the luxury downturn, Kering’s eyewear and beauty division is growing as consumers turn to more affordable purchases to scratch their itch for labels. Demna might not be a beauty fanatic, but given his consistently trending futuristic sunglasses for Balenciaga, he will undoubtedly up Gucci’s sunglasses game. Given internal pressure to abide by the brand's codes, we prob won't see oversized wraparounds with the Gucci insignia, but we may see something fresh in the place of the brand’s generally classic-leaning frames, which may well lead to Guccis being 2026’s It glasses.
Whatever’s in store, you’ve got this, Demna.
