Fashion
Everyone Wants A Piece Of Demna’s Gucci
His handbags are flying off the shelves and onto A-listers’ arms.
We’re only six weeks into 2026 (it feels like much longer, right?) and the cards are falling in favor of Demna at Gucci. Lyst released their Q4 2025 Index and crowned Saint Laurent as the hottest brand in the world at the moment, but the news we took away from the report is Gucci climbing up five spots to rejoin the top ten. This has everything to do with the host of A-listers joining “La Famiglia” and wearing the new collection, and also with Demna’s new handbags, which have already found their way onto the shoulders and hands of our favorite style stars.
The newest kid on the Gucci-monogram-covered block is the Borsetto, which, according to a press release is a mashup of “borsa (Italian for bag) and morsetto (Italian for horsebit).” The ultra-Italiano offering is a discreet rectangle shape paying homage to a briefcase or bowling bag, but altered to fit neatly on one’s arm. See Alex Consani hopping into a black car with the style tucked under her elbow, or Vittoria Ceretti heading to the Olympics opening ceremony, ever the bomba with the black leather Borsetto.
Many armchair social-media critics were initially skeptical of Demna’s ability to honor the integrity of Gucci’s history, but Demna is proving himself to be a lover of all things Italian. The classic Gucci Jackie bag got a distended update under his watch, as he pulled the silhouette out to a more rectangular shape and rendered styles in preworn leather to give it that lived-in feel. It’s worked in his favor: Dua Lipa and Amelia Gray picked up the Jackie Slim in canvas and leather styles, respectively, and I’ve seen friends and influencers alike lusting over the silhouette in press appointments and on Instagram. (It’s also the first Gucci bag I’ve lusted over in a minute.) The most direct homage to la dolce vita from Demna is the Giglio bag, another silhouette that was created before his tenure but received the campy, fashion-girl update from the iconoclast. Emily Ratajkowski wore the chocolate-brown version recently, but the coated-canvas style pays cheeky homage to both rain coats and plastic-covered sofas, something an Italian nonna would wear with honor.
This is all to say that Demna is continuing his streak of knowing exactly what people want and making it work for the house he leads: At Balenciaga, it was reinventing couture and making street and salon meet; for Gucci, it’s a twisting of heritage to make sense for the supermodels and It girls of the moment. All of this success and statistical advancement, courtesy of Lyst, is promising, given that he hasn’t even had an official runway show for the brand. We’ll be sure to check back in after his Fashion Week debut on Feb. 27, where bags will no doubt be a defining moment for this exciting new chapter in Gucci’s history.
