GucciCore

Gucci Transforms Times Square into a City 

Runway for Its Cruise 2027 ShowMatthew Burgos

For Gucci’s Cruise 2027 show, Demna Gvasalia takes over Times Square and transforms the iconic landmark into a maze of a runway. Models strut wearing the lineup from GucciCore, the fourth collection by the creative director for the house, following La Famiglia, Generation Gucci, and Primavera. It ties a fashion knot because this collection holds all of them in the same space at once. What comes through is an open wardrobe without a single theme or silhouette, but a continuous, refreshed visual language that Gucci is now dressed in.

The show’s setup at Times Square revisits the moment Gucci opened its first store outside Italy in New York in 1953. The pre-show video montage, projecting fictional Gucci product lines, including Gucci Pets, Gucci Automobili, Gucci Life, onto Times Square’s digital billboards and landscape screens reinstates a history from the Italian fashion house. With the staging and visual cues, viewers are reminded that Gucci is a fashioned lifestyle

In GucciCore, Demna sees New York as a metropolis of personalities, one that Gucci wants to dress. As models walk, their clothing recalls a Wall Street banker in a pinstripe suit or a socialite on Madison Avenue. The rugged, streetwear verve Demna is known for surfaces in the collection when he imagines a New York skater in baggy denim, strutting after an elite figure in a gown covered in feathers. The creative director describes his work at Gucci as a series of character studies, and he shows this when the collection brings all of those characters together in one place for the first time.

The designs look like they belong to different people, but are signed by the same house as recurring Gucci details appear. The Flora print, a botanical pattern first created for Gucci in 1966, shows up on a full-length coat, then again as the lining of a fur coat, and again on a pair of shoes. The Horsebit, an equestrian metal clasp that Gucci has used since the 1950s, appears on heeled pumps, boots, and bag hardware. The Web stripe – the green and red band that has been a Gucci signature for decades – appears in GucciCore as a wide belt worn over a silk dress or around a bare chest.

Fur is a recurring material too, appearing as floor-length, bulbous, or oversized coats. Others are short and cropped, but in almost every case the fur is worn loosely, open, draped, or held casually, instead of buttoned up. Gucci announced in 2017 that it would stop using animal fur, so these pieces are likely made from faux alternatives as the house tries to capture the look and feel of traditional luxury fur without actually using it.

The bags and shoes are branded with the out-of-house-style flair of Demna. A rigid box bag comes onto the runway in red and white, with the GUCCI name pressed into the leather in large, clear letters. There’s also a GG monogram canvas crossbody bag carried with a streetwear look, and some croc-embossed handbags. As a homage to Italy, there’s even a bag shaped like the traditional packaging box of panettone, a type of Italian sweet bread that typically appears during the Christmas and New Year festivities.

For his debut collection in New York, Demna has shown how he has mastered the art of weaving different things and syncing them together. Gucci, in his language, is a house with a series of prints, stripes, and monograms applied to anything for anyone. In a way, GucciCore sends a visual letter to new fans that historic luxury can look attainable.