This week, Gucci released its pre-fall 2026 collection — the second effort from its new designer, Demna, whose “debut” show for the brand in September was actually a short movie starring characters he had costumed according to what he called “Gucci archetypes.”
The pre-fall collection, Demna’s next step in establishing a new identity for Gucci, landed a couple months before he is planning to have his first “official” runway show in Milan in February. Ahead, two fashion critics on the Styles desk debate what the latest line reveals about the new Gucci.
VANESSA FRIEDMAN This is a fascinating way to orchestrate a designer debut. If the movie premiere was Demna’s brand overture, this collection is more like a prelude, leading directly to the main event. And it does suggest more of a specific direction for Demna’s Gucci than the film did: Namely, the brand’s 1990s Tom Ford heyday, when it had a sharp, minimal sexiness.
JACOB GALLAGHER I love that you say direction, because that, to me, is what this is all about — Demna is directing us somewhere.
FRIEDMAN And Demna didn’t just “direct” the photos — he took them himself.
GALLAGHER Even the way the models are walking not dead-on at us, but to the right, heading off camera. It’s saying, “Follow me here through the noise.” But where is “here”?
Initially, to me, here is the past. This collection feels immensely indebted to that moment in the ’90s when soccer players (and their partners) became cultural icons. I see a lot of Posh and Becks in the buzz cuts, windshield sunglasses, leather moto jackets and slinky, very European tees.
FRIEDMAN It’s a clever reference. Posh and Becks, otherwise known as Victoria and David Beckham, are definitely having a moment, what with her Netflix doc, his knighthood and the tabloid obsession with the supposed rift between them and their eldest son, Brooklyn, and his wife, Nicola.
There’s a sort of glee to that Gucci era that feels very attractive at the moment. It embodied a hedonistic, nakedly (if I may say so) aspirational time, before social media and smartphones meant every moment was a potential public embarrassment.
GALLAGHER Nakedly aspirational, but not actually naked. Credit to Demna here for not falling into the obvious skin-showing tricks that have become a yoke around so many brands lately. There’s sensuality here more than overt sex. A word I jotted down when I first saw the collection was “corporate.” The pantsuits, razor-straight trousers and various neck-covering designs strike an all-business tone.
Maybe if Balenciaga was Demna doing it for the kids, his Gucci will be for grown-ups.
FRIEDMAN This collection definitely is a riposte to those Balenciaga-watchers and fashion commentators (and Wall Street analysts) who seemed to assume Demna’s Gucci would just be his Balenciaga 2.0. This silhouette is much narrower, and there’s not a single puffer or sweatshirt in the collection. I predict the long, skinny trousers with the slit at the ankle will be big hits and very influential, along with the shrunken leather biker jackets.
GALLAGHER I’d add the ribbon-striped jeans. Those feel like a hit waiting to happen. But can we talk about the shoes? They’re wicked-witch pointy, and covered in spikes.
FRIEDMAN The pointy shoes go with the sharp tailoring and the pointy hems, and also feel like a trend waiting to happen. Though you, the champion of the potato shoe, may feel differently?
GALLAGHER Well, they’re certainly the most conspicuous thing from the collection. You could argue that much of what’s here won’t scream “Gucci” out in the wild. But the jabby shoe will.
FRIEDMAN The bags were also good, especially the handbags.
GALLAGHER Several of them have that weathered, almost counterfeit look, which feels apt for a brand that has been a Canal Street staple since the ’80s. It was also shrewd to reflect on the ’90s as collectors are continuing to chase Tom Ford’s Gucci on the resale market.
FRIEDMAN This collection feels very classic Gucci-coded in that it is quite fashion-led — none of that timeless luxury stuff from the brand’s recent, brief and famously disastrous period under the designer Sabato De Sarno — while also laying down a base line for the Demna era. In the sense that Ford’s ’90s Gucci was an update of ’70s Gucci, this is a legitimate update of the update.
It suggests a return to more deliberate dressing up, like the recent Chanel Métiers d’art collection from Matthieu Blazy. The pre-fall line is a way to get people into Gucci stores, since it offers an actual proposition for how to meet the day — or night. Though the evening wear was, in my opinion, the least resolved part. Too much underwear, not enough actual things to wear.
GALLAGHER I agree. That’s where I started to tune out. Was it just me, or was one look a pair of biker shorts? Athleisure will never leave us!
FRIEDMAN Yup, bike shorts. Enough said about that. Still, the collection was a promising step two, and one that makes me look forward to the fall 2026 show in February.
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