Provocateur Demna takes on slumping Gucci
The 44-year-old, who fled the war-wracked Georgian region of Abkhazia as a child and dropped his surname "Gvasalia" in 2021, will bow out with a last show for Balenciaga on Wednesday before switching to Gucci -- both firms owned by France's luxury giant Kering.
"Demna's contribution to the industry, to Balenciaga, and to the group's success has been tremendous," Kering chairman and CEO Francois-Henri Pinault said at the time. "His creative power is exactly what Gucci needs."
Investors were not so convinced and shares in Kering, which counts on Gucci as its main profit generator, fell around 12 percent on the day of the announcement before slumping even further.
Other more established and mainstream designers from Hedi Slimane, Maria Grazia Chiuri or Pierpaolo Piccioli had been linked to the vacancy.
Some analysts have questioned whether Demna's recipe for success at Balenciaga -- which leant heavily on provocative, streetwear-influenced design and showmanship -- can be replicated at the more classic Italian house.
"He is iconoclast and ironic, which is good to attract attention toward a small brand like Balenciaga," Luca Solca, a luxury analyst at the Bernstein brokerage, wrote afterwards. "However, we are not sure the strategy would work as well for a bigger brand."
Demna's final show for Balenciaga will take place on Wednesday during Haute Couture fashion week in Paris and he will join the Italian label the very next day.
During a decade at the Spanish-born but Paris-based brand, he drove sales and attention sharply higher with a mix of headline-grabbing creations as well as personal publicity -- not always positive.
He achieved notoriety with his $2,000 "Ikea" bag, a luxury leather version of the 99-cent original.
He followed it up with an $1,800 garbage bag -- the so-called "trash pouch" -- in a show in March 2022 that was dedicated to Ukrainian refugees.
Demna's lowest point came in February 2023 when he was forced to apologise for an ad campaign that appeared to reference child abuse and had underage models in what looked like bondage gear.
He has plenty of fans among Gen Z tastemakers, however.
Annual sales at Balenciaga were estimated to be $350-million when he arrived and had surged to about $2-billion in 2022, according to GQ magazine.
Gucci's fortunes have headed in the other direction: they slid 23 percent last year, prompting Kering to fire creative director Sabato de Sarno after only two years in the job.
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