At Gucci, Demna Is So Over Oversized Clothes
Demna, the man who made Balenciaga huge, is about to make Gucci a whole lot smaller. Well, it'll be big but in a slimmer sense.
As one of the most anticipated designer debuts of 2025, Demna's Gucci has already attracted much wringing of hands and wagging of tongues.
Is the former Balenciaga overseer a good fit for Gucci? How different will Demna's Gucci be from the saucy world of Sabato De Sarno and Alessandro Michele's inimitable romanticism?
Answers, in order: Yes. Very. But it may not necessarily look exactly as you expect.
In a late May interview with Hamburg newspaper Die Zeit, which mostly escaped notice because it was published in German, Demna talked his vision for Gucci. Specifically, his vision for how his Gucci clothes will likely fit.
"I'm very uninterested in plus sizes at the moment. I've been there, I've done that," Demna said (note that the translation may not be entirely faithful). "Today, oversize is part of mainstream fashion, but really not in a good way. Oversize doesn't interest me so much anymore."
Mercifully, Demna clarified that just because oversized clothes are ubiquitous, he's not interested in skinny jeans.
Elsewhere in the interview, he very validly pointed out that his influence on clothing is visible at all ends of the stylistic and price spectrums while emphasizing that, at the end of the day, it's crucial that he makes clothing that people can actually wear.
"But every now and then I also like the idea of something that is unwearable or useless, but stunningly conceptual," he said. "But that only accounts for about ten percent of my production."
Demna's final Balenciaga ready-to-wear collection was a look forward and back, both a reflection on the silhouettes that the designer pioneered for the luxury label and a look at how he's pushing it forward before stepping down.
Crucially, though, it's also a reminder that though Demna is best known for a baggy silhouette, he's hardly opposed to a tighter fit. This is the man who pioneered "Pantaleggings," remember. Even before his "normal" Winter 2025 collection, Demna was dabbling in shapes not nearly as huge as one may imagine.
And with everyone else biting Demna's approach, it's fitting that his Gucci would do a 180. Or at least take a 90-degree turn.
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