The set for Demna’s spring 2027 Gucci show was a shop, built life size inside a Milanese convention hall. Barely a month later the shop exists at number 56 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, and the simulation has stopped being a metaphor.
Francesca Bellettini, named president and chief executive of the house in September 2025, has compressed what is usually a two-year store programme into a single season. Her first full collection with the designer reached stores at the beginning of this year, which means the architecture and the clothes had to arrive together.
Materials, fixtures and merchandising were carried across almost without translation. The boutique replaces Gucci’s previous unit two doors down, and it opens a global rollout with London, Shanghai and Chengdu scheduled before the year ends.
A second Paris project is already underway near Place Vendome, with an opening targeted for the end of next year. By then the store will have to function as more than an announcement, and the question will be whether the room still reads as new.
It also answers a directive from above. Kering chief executive Luca de Meo has ordered the closure of hundreds of underperforming doors across the group, shifting capital toward fewer and larger flagships in cities that convert tourists and residents alike.
