London is preparing itself for the megawatt Gucci effect. The Italian house's upcoming cruise collection will be shown in the British capital on May 13, it was announced today (5 February).The news might come to a blow to some fashion editors who like packing their Rimowa trunks for long haul flights to sample cruise offerings — last year, Gucci showed theirs in Seoul, Dior in Mexico City while Louis Vuitton presented their Men's Pre-Fall 2024 in Hong Kong last November — but it follows Chanel, who looked to double down on the UK market by showing their 2023/24 Métiers d'art show in Manchester in December.
While few further details have been revealed, Gucci fashion shows are notoriously starry affairs. In September, for creative director Sabato De Sarno’s debut, Julia Roberts, Jessica Chastain, Kendall Jenner, Bad Bunny and Rylan Gosling all flocked to Milan to sit front row. Since, Paul Mescal and Billie Eilish have both become faces of the Italian brand's latest incarnation.
Sabato might well have had his London lightbulb moment when he was in town launching the Gucci Cosmos exhibition extravaganza in October. He was certainly taken aback by the expansive show, which dug into the history of the house roots in the capital; a story which began in 1897, when to-be founder Guccio Gucci first fell in love with leather goods working as a luggage porter in the Savoy hotel’s lifts. “Bellissimo” Sabato said, as he wandered, doe-eyed, through the archival pieces and his own “Ancora” designs — all deep reds and 90s Gucci sexiness.
The house is yet to announce the show location, but expect the impressive. The last Gucci runway to come to London was in June, 2016, when former creative director Alessandro Michele presented his pre-spring/summer 2017 collection at Westminster Abbey — its first ever fashion show. Big loafers to fill.
