Demna gets personal at Gucci for Milan Fashion Week

Gucci designer Demna presented his first truly "personal" show at Milan Fashion Week Friday, hoping to revitalise the storied Italian brand with a glamorous, eccentric and rebellious style.

Demna's men are hooded bad boys, wearing tartan-lined jackets or suits with pronounced shoulders, cropped trousers that expose the ankle, and triple-buckle belts for a rock-and-roll touch.

The women evoke Milanese style from the 1980s with a hint of eccentricity: classic black suits revealing the midriff, leather coats worn with a scarf or enormous furs, all perched on high-heeled boots.

Some sport a more punk look, with chains around their necks.

Demna wrote on Instagram before the show that the collection represented "my complete personal vision for the brand" after one year studying it.

"Gucci stands for being rooted in the idea of belonging to a more glamourous world and in the audacity to remake that world in your own image," he wrote.

For the 45-year-old Georgian designer, whose full name is Demna Gvasalia, Gucci is "luxury that wants to be seen", with "eccentricity, danger or sex appeal" lurking behind its more bourgeois roots.

Sales at the flagship label of the Kering group -- which also includes Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga -- have disappointed in recent years, after several boom years under the creative direction of Alessandro Michele.

Since the former Balenciaga designer's arrival at Gucci in 2025 and the presentation of two first collections in February and May that took inspiration from the brand's archives, sales continued to decline in the second quarter.

But they declined at a slower rate than in the first, Kering said in July.

Party in LA

On Thursday night, Roberto Cavalli turned to Los Angeles for inspiration, tapping exuberant, festive California excess for the brand's Spring/Summer 2027 collection.

With leopard prints, feathers, billowy kimonos and imprinted red leather, designer Fausto Puglisi channelled an over-the-top LA party at a runway show attended by rapper Cardi B, tennis player Naomi Osaka and Italian influencer Chiara Ferragni.

A zebra-print kimono was paired with kaleidoscopic printed jeans barely covering a zebra-print thong.

A burst of feathers emerged from the hip of an embroidered jeans miniskirt, with a slinky button-down leopard shirt on top.

"I'm trying to respond to a terrible time" around the world, Fausto Puglisi told AFP after the show.

The Sicilian designer said he was trying to "resist by creating something beautiful that brings optimism, conceived as a setting for a director or a writer".

The result: lace-up tops baring the midriff, a tunic with a cheetah head and flowers woven onto the lower legs of jeans.

In show notes, the brand said the collection was meant to evoke "feverishly constructed chaos that seems alive," adding that Cavalli was "party, escapism, joy".

It was Puglisi's first show since Roberto Cavalli was taken over by US group Marquee Brands, owner of Ben Sherman and BCBGMAXAZRIA.

Also Thursday, Emporio Armani showed the last mixed collection designed by Leo dell'Orco and Silvana Armani, ahead of the arrival of Dario Vitale, announced earlier this month.

The collection sewn from linen, silk or white, gray or black jersey looked aged and crumpled by sea water and wind. Salt crystals, used to treat the garments, were also reproduced on jackets and brooches.

"Everything seems to float lightly while retaining firmness and structure," the brand said in a press release.

Max Mara, meanwhile, unveiled long and loose trench coats, safari jackets in linen or gabardine, and wide, high-waisted trousers, drawing inspiration from the "bold, cosmopolitan women of the 1930s", according to the brand.