Gucci Enters Its "Eras" Era
Ahead of its latest catwalk show in Milan, Gucci’s press office sent out a series of communications. They were headed “continuum”.
“A continuum of craft, taste and culture that passes through time, the fashion house is one that has many owners and many guardians; craftspeople and artisans, creative directors and designers, each with their own histories entwined,” these messages explained. “At once universal and personal, Gucci embodies a variety of expressions, with its clothing and accessories… moving from then and now and to the future, travelling through time.”
In other words: times may change, employees may come and go, but there will always be Gucci.
Walking into Superstudio Maxi – Milan’s largest event venue, home to festivals and exhibitions, and today host to Gucci’s autumn/winter catwalk 2025 show – no one could doubt that we were here to celebrate Gucci, The Brand.
Drapes of Gucci green hung from the ceiling. Carpet of Gucci green ran underfoot. A vast metallic double-G logo, also green, hung in a foyer. Linger, and who could resist a selfie with the two interlocking letters? The emblem marks its 50th anniversary this year.
The fashion house is indeed one that has had “many owners and many guardians”. Some, like the creative directors Tom Ford (1994-2004) and Alessandro Michele (2015-2022), managed to illuminate the zeitgeist so conclusively, their work is still identifiable today from a single catwalk shot.
Others, like the shorter lived Sabato de Sarno (2023-2025), whose abrupt departure was announced three weeks before this show, may not get to be remembered the same way.
The autumn/winter 2025 collection was be credited to the Orwellian sounding “Design Office” instead.
It's not the first time a fashion house has had to stage a show without a figurehead.
But it is to Gucci’s credit that it went ahead pretending that was normal.
The show, which combined menswear with womenswear, the models walking a catwalk made of more interlocking Gs, the women around one G, the men around the other, then trading places, was a one-off by design as well as circumstance.
“Today, the collection could be seen as foundational, that says something of Gucci in its codes and beliefs both past, present and future,” said the advance notes. “A synthesis of eras is embraced… from the late 1960s – the inception of Gucci ready-to-wear… from mid 1990s minimalism to the more recent ultra-maximal.”
And so, for one season only, Gucci would present something that was an echo of Gucci’s Greatest Hits.
To start our toes tapping, there was even a techno-assisted live orchestra, who struck up to perform an original score, heavy on the French horn, by composer John Hurwitz, who won a pair of Oscars in 2016 for La La Land.
As for the clothes, we got Alessandro Michele-adjacent maximalist nods likes lilac mohair cardigans, shag-pile faux fur coats and shimmery velour sleeves worn under sweater vests.
There was louche cream suiting and matching polo-necks, the sort of thing that might have starred in the background of one of Tom Ford’s perv-luxe 1990s ad campaigns.
Then came cropped bomber jackets, boxy car coats and interestingly mottled three-quarter-length coats.
Plus accessories, of course. Outsized bags and space age specs, double-G logos and slippers. And lots and lots of horse-bit loafers.
Was it anything we hadn’t seen before? Not really, no. But then that was surely the point.
“A distinctive sense of Italian style… a way of living that has been integral to Gucci’s aesthetic from the beginning, is something that permeates the collection and its presentation,” said the notes.
Catwalk shows famously conclude with their designer taking a bow. That wasn’t going to be possible today.
But in an unusually kind move for any big fashion house, let alone one going through a sticky patch, Gucci threw back the metaphorical curtain and let the “Design Office”, 30-odd men and women, who didn't look a bit Orwellian after all, take the applause instead.
They were all dressed down in matching Gucci sweatshirts.
You can probably guess what colour.
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