Demna Gvasalia has wasted no time in redefining Gucci. Rather than waiting for the scheduled Milan Fashion Week film premiere, the designer unveiled a 37-image lookbook entitled La Famiglia — his first true declaration of intent at the house. The project reads less like a traditional preview and more like a manifesto, offering an intimate glimpse into what Demna calls “the Gucciness of Gucci”.

Shot by Los Angeles photographer Catherine Opie, the portraits carry both documentary weight and theatrical irony. Each image introduces a character archetype, a family member in this imagined Gucci universe. The opening, L’Archetipo, places a newly crafted Gucci trunk at center stage, an unmistakable homage to Guccio Gucci’s origins. From there, the narrative unfolds with both reverence and wit: L’Incazzata, embodied by Maria Carla Boscono in a scarlet coat, gloves, horsebit pumps, and printed headscarf, channels 1960s Milanese refinement with sly composure; L’Influencer steps out in an oversized lizard-finish bomber and leather skirt; Nerd nods to Alessandro Michele’s romanticism via a ribbon-tied knit shirt and tailored shorts.

The collection’s silhouettes lean toward Demna’s signature restraint, sharper, more sculptural, and pared-back compared to Michele’s maximalist layering. Yet surface treatments firmly tether the clothes to Gucci’s archive: metallic lamé gowns, Flora-printed dresses with leg-o’-mutton sleeves, GG-monogram suiting, and bamboo-handle bags all anchor heritage codes in deliberate, almost forensic ways.

If the lookbook is a family album, it is one infused with irony. Demna isn’t simply curating Gucci’s legacy; he is playfully interrogating it. Archetypes are celebrated and subverted in equal measure, their exaggerated identities straddling homage and satire. The result is an aesthetic base that feels both familiar and unsettled, setting the stage for tomorrow’s film and, ultimately, his February runway debut.

Still, the intellectual weight of La Famiglia occasionally threatens to eclipse the garments themselves. Some viewers may find the narrative cleverness more striking than the fashion. Yet as a first statement, the lookbook accomplishes what it sets out to do: situate Gucci as a house of tension between past and future, reverence and provocation.

Demna’s Gucci begins not with spectacle but with character, memory, and myth. If this preview is any indication, the next chapter promises to be as layered and complex as the family he has just introduced.