Yahoo Lifestyle Gucci Fall 2025: Continuity, Awaiting the Next Rupture
Is a luxury fashion brand the sum of its history, its iconography, and its past creative directors and marketers?
Or is it a “Continuum,” the title Gucci gave to its coed show for fall 2025, a placeholder effort awaiting its next creative director, staged less than a month after the abrupt departure of Sabato de Sarno less than two years into the job, and yet more dismal numbers.
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Revenues dropped 24 percent in the fourth quarter, a little better than the 25 percent drop in the prior quarter — enough for parent Kering to start feeling a little bit of optimism.
“Gucci will come back. I have absolutely no doubts about this,” chairman and chief executive officer François-Henri Pinault vowed last month.
On Tuesday, the press notes at Gucci described an amalgam of silhouettes — stretching from the ’60s through the mid-’90s — and aesthetics that ranged from the minimalism of the Tom Ford era “to the more recent ultra-maximal,” a veiled reference to de Sarno’s predecessor Alessandro Michele, who never met a flea market find that didn’t inspire him.
To be sure, those two men brought a cinematic quality to Gucci, which this team effort sought to evoke with a live orchestra and an original score by composer John Hurwitz, who took home two Oscars for “La La Land” back in 2016.
To be sure, the collection did not live up to the grandiose set of interlocking Gs — incidentally, reminiscent of the interlocking Cs that Chanel laid out for its couture show in Paris last January. The women’s collection paraded one G; the men’s the other, and then they switched spots.
The women’s collections hinged on ladylike dressing tinged with subversion: so a lacy slip and bra top went under a boxy wool coat, and glossy accessories in offbeat colors fed a good taste/bad taste dichotomy.
There were handsome pea coats in zesty colors, an eye-catching cardigan glittering with silvery embroideries, and slit pencil skirts which had some swagger.
When the menswear did its circuit, it became clearer that both genders shared many of the same fabrics, especially tweeds, and some of the same garments, notably glossy coats in mottled patterns and offbeat colors like butter yellow and mauve.
For men, the tailoring was slender and subdued, with small slits on the back of the pant hems revealing a new erogenous zone — the Achilles tendon — visible thanks to their squishy leather mules.
When a brown bomber jacket with trenchcoat detailing appeared, you were reminded of a similar garment paraded the night before at Burberry in London, a collection similarly hinged more on merch than fashion.
The pressure on the design team to perform must have been enormous, and amid a swirl of speculation about who their next boss might be: Hedi Slimane, Maria Grazia Chiuri, John Galliano, Dario Vitale — or someone the internet hasn’t thought of yet.
They all poured out for a quick bow in front of the orchestra, dressed in green sweatshirts that matched the curtains ringing the vast set. Their appearance finally got the audience applauding.
It’s clear that Gucci’s best moments came when the runway throbbed with fashion urgency: a spotlight roving over a red velvet pantsuit, a green silk blouse or a white jersey dress with portholes, or a foggy room full of androgynous characters in stylized geek-chic finery.
In lieu of continuums, what Gucci needs is a rupture.
Launch Gallery: Gucci Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
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