🇬🇧 What is a creative director for? - Cool Haunted by nss magazine
The creative crisis of fashion houses amid fear, markets at risk, and lost identity.
What struck most about this past Milan Fashion Week was sadness. A black suit reaching mid-calf is all that Maria Grazia Chiuri’s new Fendi left us; Kate Moss in the Gucci G-string, designed by Tom Ford in 1997, is the only novelty Demna brought to the Maison for his first show in Milan.
Against the backdrop of escalating conflicts in the Middle East, all-black outfits, somber atmospheres, and a halo of nostalgia transformed the shows from marvelous spectacles into dramatic performances. While the aesthetic gloom of luxury reflects the low expectations of contemporary society - trapped in a poignant, repetitive cycle seeking comfort in the grandeur of the past - it simultaneously deprives the fashion industry of its most important value: creativity.
Of course, it is difficult to dream in a broken world, yet the attempts by fashion houses and creative directors to bring current events to the runway seem driven less by a desire to comment on them than by the aim of exploiting them to keep selling. After all, luxury has, in this war, a single, sad concern: the shrinking of active markets in cities like Dubai, Riyadh, and Doha. And if fashion can only bring to the runway what it experiences firsthand, then today all luxury can convey is the fear of being forgotten.
Meanwhile, the identity of historic brands is crumbling, crushed by commercial demands, the pressures exerted by luxury executives on new creative directors, and perhaps by the latter’s fear of going unappreciated. Fendi, Dolce&Gabbana, and even Gucci have retreated into all-black looks, a lack of artistic risks, and the revival of past designs, disguised as careful archival research.
But the minimalism of quiet luxury and vintage aesthetics in 2026 have run out of steam: consumers and fashion insiders - still fans of timeless elegance (a term overused in recent seasons, even by this writer) and of the most iconic collections in fashion history - crave innovation. All-black and all-beige looks may sell well and provide financial support, but if a brand relies solely on them to stay afloat, it risks losing its uniqueness.
Demna’s Gucci seemed poised to bring a ray of light to Milan. The Georgian designer, known worldwide for his creative acumen, this time left too much room on the runway for marketability and nostalgia. Demna essentially presented everything Gucci already represents: Italian drama, Tom Ford’s grandeur, and the accessibility of the previous decade’s street style. The show - sensational in its theatricality thanks to the participation of niche stars (allow us the oxymoron) like Nettspend alongside international icons such as Kate Moss - felt more like a documentary than an original piece. A film already seen, a once-glorious era that today offers nothing but the comfort of revisiting it.
To show their gratitude, comply with the wishes of top management, or perhaps simply play it safe and avoid missteps that could cost them their newly acquired positions, new creative directors increasingly return to the roots of the brands they have taken the helm of. It is a commendable effort, given the commitment and dedication required to research an entire brand’s history, but sometimes revisiting the past feels indistinguishable from copying. Moreover, in this vicious cycle, creative directors can no longer exercise the creativity for which they were hired - a paradox that transforms them from pioneers into mere imitators. This applies not only to new creative directors, such as Demna at Gucci or Meryll Rogge at Marni, but also to veterans in Milan.
At Dolce&Gabbana and Prada, the designers chose to focus on the concept of identity: the former by celebrating its own aesthetic, rooted in Sicily, tailoring, lace, and the color black; the latter by revisiting femininity through wardrobe archetypes. What made the shows special was not so much the collections, which featured the brands’ most iconic designs, but the styling, taken to the extreme and made the true protagonist, as the models - only fifteen in number - removed a piece before walking the runway again. Both, like the younger creative directors, brought to the runway what the audience already knows and admires about these brands.
At this point, one has to wonder whether luxury brands still benefit from showing collections on the runway. If creative directors can no longer exercise their imagination - so much so that most shows have lost their titles and merely follow the corresponding season - and consumers are satisfied with collections that reiterate already-popular stylistic codes, the show’s sole purpose becomes advertising. In hindsight, perhaps hypebeasts were right: in Milan, artistic innovation and technical progress lie in the hands of independent and emerging brands; for luxury maisons, all that remains is the logo. This might explain why, of all the pieces this Fashion Week, the accessory that moved people most was Gucci’s GG Web belt bag.