Gucci Returns to Its Roots with a Cruise Show in Florence

May 16, 2025

Lead ImageGucci Cruise 2026Courtesy of Gucci

Gucci came up with a clever idea for its latest Cruise 2026 collection: stage it in the archive. It’s a simple, ingenious and literal notion that makes you wonder why no brand has thought of it before. But then you realise that it’s probably because most brands store their archives in character-rinsed, out-of-town warehouses, rather than the palatial Palazzo Settimanni, a 15th-century mansion in the heart of Florence that has been the home of various bits of Gucci since 1953 – first artisan workshop, then showroom, now archive. Frescoed and vaulted, it gives good backdrop.

Indeed, Gucci clothes past were still hanging in glass-fronted closets, shrouded in protective cloth, while these Gucci clothes present paraded past. And that highlighted a dialogue between history and future that is always essential in a heritage brand, perhaps never more so than when a brand has shed its creative head and is waiting for its next chapter, which is exactly where Gucci stands right now, shepherded by its internal design team for a second season.

Gucci Cruise 2025Courtesy of Gucci

If in doubt, go back to your roots. Florence literally is that for Gucci – it’s where the brand began in 1921, and a stone’s throw from the archive, there’s a whole museum dedicated to the label, including a café where you can buy boxes of sugarcubes formed into the Gucci double-G logo. That emblem was a keynote of this Cruise show, a stamp of belonging jacquarded into fabrics, embroidered and studded in crystal on sheer trousers and bodysuits, woven into canvas, and buckling belts and shoes. Many of those were outright archival reissues – a low-heeled, squared-toe, slinged-back style reiterated often was borrowed from a Tom Ford collection from 1998; his jewelled horse bits from 2003 re-emerged too. Those were the real reflections of the brand’s history, but there were also half-remembered echoes of Gucci’s past, in much the same way that the aforementioned Ford, in his tenure, tapped into a mythologised Gucci of slick 70s Studio 54 hedonism that never actually happened, but now is indelibly associated with the brand. This offering was slightly more 80s than 70s – emphatic shoulders, mob wife striped shearling coats, brief skirts clinched with big G-logoed belts, heavily chain-strapped bags, thick globules of costume jewellery and oversized sunglasses. There were hints of off-duty Gucci clients like Jacqueline Kennedy (maybe) and Elizabeth Taylor (definitely), and more than a whiff of Lady Gaga’s turn as Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci. That’s a fable of Gucci, but it’s one with real resonance. It also feels keyed to how many contemporary people are dressing, especially aged 30 and under. There was plenty for them to love here.

Gucci Cruise 2025Courtesy of Gucci

The big question: was the incoming Gucci creative director, Demna, in the room with us? Literally, no – he’s still at Balenciaga, and will present his final haute couture collection for that brand in July. Many conjectured you could feel his influence – and certainly there was a sharp focus to the collection, as well as a few nods to styles that have become readily associated with Demna’s aesthetic – bathrobe-style knotted coats in sheepskin inlaid with suede strips, tie-necked blouse dresses, and all the body-clinging crystal-tainted sheer stuff. Whether Demna himself had a hand in the edit of the looks, or if the design team were craftily leaning into a known aesthetic ahead of the induction of their boss-to-be, it’s unsure. Maybe a little of both?

In any case, there were enough riffs and references to Gucci’s past to anchor this collection in the house iconography, and plenty of new stuff to keep press and clients excited – the latter, of course, is the primary function of these commercial-facing interim collections, where clients are out in force in the audience. Indeed, Gucci staged two shows for 150 guests each – the first composed of high-spending high-rollers from around the world. The next day, they and we came back to view the clothes in the archive show space, which felt fitting. Because, in a meta-twist, this future collection has now already become part of the house’s history, soon to be held in that expansive back-catalogue. It serves as a marker of one chapter, on the eve of a new one beginning.

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