Demna's Second Gucci Show Leans on Heritage as Moschino's New Duo Debuts

Gucci creative director Demna shifted focus from the sharp archetypes of his debut to the house's luxury heritage for his second collection, unveiled during Milan Fashion Week. The runway was staged as a luxury Gucci boutique, with Cardi B in white faux fur and Donatella Versace, wearing a stole from Demna's first Gucci collection, seated on cushioned sofas. Brand ambassador Jannik Sinner sat beside Vogue's Anna Wintour.

Models moved through the boutique with studied nonchalance, glancing at jewellery cases, handbag shelves and ready-to-wear racks. With the luxury sector under pressure, the setting underscored a commercial message: these were clothes meant to sell. "Gucci is about luxury that wants to be seen," Demna wrote in the show notes.

The silhouette opened boldly. Men's suits featured exaggeratedly broad shoulders, while pagoda shoulders shaped women's jackets and dresses. Collars were turned up, and styling stayed Italian — cropped pants and elongated loafers without socks for him, a cinched trench over a blouse and skirt for her. References to Alessandro Michele's eccentricity and Tom Ford's sexualised silhouettes were softer than in Demna's debut. Instead of embodying fixed Italian archetypes, the collection invited customers to borrow elements without being confined by them.

Layering blurred identities. Low-slung trousers held by three belts evoked the swagger of a maranza, or troublemaking urban youth, while a bourgeois tartan skirt was unsettled by a leather bomber over a plaid shirt and an oversized necklace. Standout commercial looks included a double-breasted navy peacoat with high-heeled equestrian boots — spurs adding a Demna flourish — and a rugby shirt with Gucci stripes layered under an Oxford shirt and a logo jacket.

At Moschino, Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo brought the cult credibility they built at Sunnei to their debut as creative directors, taking up founder Franco Moschino's legacy of intellectual wit. The show was set on the top floor of a parking garage overlooking the 2026 Olympic ice hockey venue, as the setting sun cast a pinkish sky. Hundreds of people in their own clothes walked in the opposite direction alongside the runway, threading personal style through the collection.

The house's irony remained but relied less on quirk. Grass fringe punctured luxury's preciousness, and cartoonish graphics read more as art than caricature. Humour still surfaced in the clothes: exaggerated side bustles gave skirts Marie Antoinette proportions, while padding suggested an enhanced female ideal. Fans of novelty bags shaped like milk cartons or cooking pots may find the pared-down aesthetic disappointing; the season's bag was a practical large bucket, with the only novelty a cat-shaped bag perched on a model's shoulder.

The designers said they are building a modern version of the house. "We want Moschino to become a cultural loudspeaker again," Rizzo said. "We have the same urgency in terms of creativity and breaking walls, but it's 2026."