Why Demna Was Picked as Gucci’s New Designer

Right on the heels of fashion month, the designer shakeups have already begun. After this morning’s news that Donatella Versace would be replaced by Dario Vitale as chief creative officer of Versace, another major Italian brand has found a successor.

Demna, the mononymic talent who has been the creative director of Balenciaga since 2015, will be taking the reins as artistic director at fellow Kering brand Gucci. (The previous designer, Sabato De Sarno, departed in February, and Gucci’s fall 2025 show was created by an in-house design team.) However, Demna will reportedly continue at Balenciaga for the time being, showing an haute couture collection in July.

The Georgian designer studied at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and worked at Maison Margiela and Louis Vuitton before starting his own line, Vetements, in 2014. His cheeky, meme-worthy designs, like a DHL-branded T-shirt—as well as his canny high-low collaborations with everyone from Hanes to Juicy Couture—quickly took over fashion’s consciousness, and likely helped him capture the Balenciaga post. In his time there, he’s continued to find surprising, headline-making confluences between different spheres of fashion: his runway Crocs, for instance, or the time he wrapped Kim Kardashian in a catsuit made from caution tape.

Michelle Yeoh wears Balenciaga to attend the brand’s haute couture show.

As reported by Business of Fashion, Gucci CEO Stefano Cantino told the press, “Elevation means exceptional execution but also exceptional creativity. Demna is able to interpret contemporary culture and define what is luxury today for a young generation and the future. His vision for Gucci is not going to be anything that has been done for Balenciaga. His intention is to do something that is right for Gucci.”