Summer looks good everywhere. A Euro summer looks good to everyone. Especially to Demna, who just launched Gucci’s new summer campaign, showing us what wealth, clear blue waters, the sort of wardrobe that never sees a laundry basket, and the kind of leisure that exists only when nobody is answering emails look like in Monte Carlo. After shutting down New York’s Times Square for a single Cruise show, I’d probably set sail to the French Riviera too.
“A new campaign unfolds across Monte Carlo, captured in a series of moments shaped by motion, light, and the spirit of escape. A summer of possibility is framed by Monaco’s cultural aura, long a stage for fashion, glamour, and those always on the move,” the brand’s Instagram caption reads. Which, translated, roughly becomes: what Gucci imagines a retired villa party on the Mediterranean coast looks like, somewhere between sun-soaked afternoons and after-dark polish. Directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, the short film follows a group of friends who appear to have signed an informal agreement to never be dry. They dive into a pool that leads to the sea, another pool that somehow leads to a bathtub, and then keep going, jumping fences, climbing rocks, and drifting past LED-masked figures whose only commitment is to aging, aesthetically, correctly, and not at all.
Both the short and its imagery (starring Amelia Gray, Anok Yai, and Kayako Higuchi) politely remind us that a good bag equals a good outfit. The Jackie, now approaching myth status, returns alongside the Madison, the Gossip, the Mercato, the Borsetto, and a few other familiar names. Gucci’s Flora motif celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, originally designed for Grace Kelly, then Princess Grace of Monaco, which is also a convenient excuse for the house to bring the print back everywhere this season. As for the Gucci boys, it’s muscle tee season.
