Gucci Spring 2027

The most anticipated show of Milan Fashion Week took place inside a Gucci store, complete with marble walls, shelves of accessories and rails of clothes. For Demna, the setting was more than a backdrop: Gucci’s heritage lives on the shop floor, where the clothes ultimately meet the customer. The collection felt like an extension of that idea - less concerned with excavating the archive than with taking the codes already associated with Gucci and making them feel relevant again.

Individually, very little here is entirely new. Fur, tailored coats, evening dresses, riding references, bags and exaggerated shoulders all already exist within the Gucci lexicon. What makes them feel different is the styling. Demna is particularly good at creating characters through the way clothes are put together, and SS27 was full of familiar archetypes given a new attitude. Oversized proportions, sharp tailoring and elongated shoes brought traces of his Balenciaga vocabulary into Gucci, while horsebit details, tight riding trousers, waxed jackets, tartan and polished trenches kept the collection firmly rooted in the house.

The tension between Gucci’s bourgeois and eccentric sides was particularly effective. Demna has described the house as existing somewhere between those two identities - between refinement and excess, Florence and Hollywood, heritage and pop culture - and the collection moved comfortably between them. There were flashes of the Gucci family’s Alpine glamour and fur, echoes of the sexier Tom Ford era, and more provocative moments alongside polished daywear. Rather than choosing one version of Gucci, Demna seems interested in making all of them coexist.

And that may be the most commercially interesting part of the collection. Gucci does not necessarily need to invent an entirely new wardrobe; its strongest codes are already deeply recognisable. SS27 feels almost like a sales pitch to the customer: here is the Gucci you know, styled in a way that makes you want it again. After several difficult seasons for the brand, the question is perhaps not whether Gucci needs to reinvent itself, but whether Demna should simply keep pushing his own vision through the house codes that made Gucci desirable in the first place.