A Tale of Two Houses

Prada and Gucci have recently been using AI images/ videos for big campaign beats. Both of which have received a massive amount of backlash. However, one seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of their market, brand and buyer and the other one leveraged the expected backlash as part of their marketing strategy.

Prada or Pradon’t?

The Prada brand’s Autumn Winter ‘26 show was set in a hallowed out mansion, which feels like the perfect metaphor of where the Prada group and brand are currently. Their prices are exorbitantly high while the their product designs are average and construction quality is abysmal. Prada’s new big hook for consumers… Pre-stained garments! That’s right, the ultra wealthy continue to crave cosplaying as working class and this collection is built for them. Prada brand sales have dropped a 1% YoY in 2025. Compared to it’s sibling brand Miu Miu who gained 35% YoY (despite having a massive quality crisis), the Prada brand is missing the mark.

Speaking of missing marks.. The eternally swagless Zuckerberg sat front row at the Milan Prada show. Several months ago Prada eyewear announced they would be working with Meta (through EssilorLuxottica) to bring their “smartglasses” to the “luxury” brand. EssilorLuxottica is the licensor for Prada and Miu Miu eyewear and has already integrated Meta smart glasses across Rayban and Oakley. If you are unfamiliar with EssilorLuxottica they own 80% of the eyewear market and are notorious for making products out of the cheapest materials with terrible quality and manufacturing.

The Prada brand seems to be obsessed with lifeless androids, because after having Zuck front row, their SS26 campaign launched with AI artwork by Jordan Wolfson. Jordan is an artist who gained notoriety from building animatronic sculptures. The campaign centers on images shot by Oliver Hadlee Pearch and features AI based characters. The stills from the campaign look much better than the video assets, as those have the typical oily and wonky lighting that comes from AI. Overall, the online comments point to the campaign being a miss for both Jordan Wolfson fans and Prada fans. The birdlike creepy characters have the most impact as weird scroll stoppers but doesn’t add to the Prada story or world in any capacity. The characters, outfits and collection all feel so detached from the brand that it begs the question “why"?”

Demna Debut at Gucci

Demna (the newly appointed Creative Director for Gucci, previously the CD at Balenciaga) skipped doing a debut show for his Spring Summer 26 collection and instead opted for an incredible film bringing his personas aptly named “La Familgia” to life.

For Autumn Winter 26, Demna once again showed that he understands the attention economy and branding better than most fashion house creative directors. For better or worse the lead up to Demna’s Primavera show in Milan leveraged AI generated images as teasers for. The AI social posts functioned as a lightning rod of attention. The amount of media attention and engagement these posts garnered was monumental. When I first saw the images, I was one of the many nay-sayers thinking about how much it devalued the artisanal story that the Kering owned business had been telling for decades. After seeing the Primavera show, the through lines from the campaign to runway show and season theme became more clear and intentional. Unlike Prada’s campaign, Demna built social and cultural commentary through every aspect of the AW26 show.

Gucci unlike other brands doesn’t have an iconic silhouette or item that it is known for, rather it is a brand shaped by different eras of incredibly successful creative directors who built the collections aligned to their world views. The iconic Tom Ford era was sexy and sleek and the Alessandro Michele era was more wild and enticing. The show featured some hyper-sexualized looks that evoked glimpses of the Tom Ford era at Gucci. However, unlike the Tom Ford era of energetic optimism this collection felt like a walking hangover with characters who’s proportions are so off that you start to question if the people were made by what AI thinks an attractive person is. The skin tight looks that only the most regimented jaw-smashed, peptide taking, ultra wealthy can even hope to wear, are going to be tough to sell en masse. Yet, the collection reflects our modern cultural obsession of the “hyper optimized self”, where people take a peptide regime prescribed by ChatGPT.

Demna taped into both internet and IRL cultural zeitgeists to bring this collection to the masses. He recognizes the fragmentation of the Gucci brand and buyer as an opportunity to directly entice new and different buyers rather than treating them as a monolith. Operating at extremes the collection tries to speak to very specific buyers, from the ultra wealthy club goers, valium taking matriarchs, and looksmaxxed gym bros down to the more attainable roadman aesthetic. This collection Demna taped into the UK underground rap scene for both a cultural aesthetic, collaboration and clout. The scene was featured prominently with having fakemink and Nettspend walk in the show and Feng, Fimiguerrero, and Rico Ace sitting front row. The roadman aesthetic of monogram bags against a uniform of black, show that a once famously bootlegged aesthetic is now a form of cultural validation.

This Autumn Winter collection for Gucci is incredibly important, as Kering’s flagship brand has been hemorrhaging sales. The brand has seen a decline of 22% YoY, with consecutive double digit sales declines. Since the departure of the previous Creative Director Alessandro Michele, in 2022 to last year, revenue has fallen from around $12 billion to $7 billion, dragging down parent company Kering’s fortunes with it. With this show being the debut runway, there was a ton of hype, expectations and business pressure as Kering is eager to see a return in sales. To capitalize on the attention this runway show had garnered, Gucci launched a “buy the runway look” section to their website, where visitors could immediately buy some monogram bags and logo forward items that were seen in the show.

The collection functions better as strategic, creative, and cultural analysis of the Gucci brand, the fashion industry and culture as a whole, rather than a wearable and sellable product. There are rumors that the next collection will feature what Demna has defined as “Gucci-core” which should feel at home in the closet of the 100 year old Milanese buyer. Seeing where the archetypes go and the world that Demna continues to build will be a really exciting journey to watch.

Quick Bits:

Maison Margiela/ Folders

In a world where most fashion brands tend to lean into Mythical storytelling around craftsmanship, Maison Margiela taps into their core DNA and pulls back the curtain. Maison Margiela has a few house codes that serve to drive their collections and brand ethos. Transparency around how things are built and work is one of them. For their campaign leading up to their show in China this past week, they built “Folders” a dropbox catalog of all their research, findings and garments scanned and shared for everyone to view. A digital archive and transparency rarely ever seen like this before.

Mcqueen Layoffs

McQueen laid off 20% of their headquarters staff in October 2025 and have just announced a 30% layoff in their Italian operations. I visited their store in Beverly Hills this past weekend and like most things in this economy, their prices are up while quality have dropped.

Tostitos Redesigns their packaging to focus on the product.

PepsiCo has redesigned its Tostitos packaging to focus both on the corn elements of their chips and the chip shapes as the view port into the bags. Consumers are reading more labels and are more conscious about ingredients than ever before. Pepsi is betting big that the corn illustrations will make people view the chips as more natural despite being classified as ultra-processed food.

Marks & Spencer is attempting a US revival with Nordstrom

U.K. department store retailer Marks & Spencer is heading back to America for a second attempt to crack the U.S. market, this time in partnership with Nordstrom.

101 Ads

Ever wanted to see all the AI, Web3, Tech billboard slop all over San Francisco in one place?! Thank your lucky stars that Dan Berte built 101 Ads for you so you can check them all out without needing to leave your house.

All Birds crash lands

Once worth $4 Billion dollars All Birds closes all stores, and barely avoids bankruptcy by being sold to American Exchange for $39 Million. Tech bros everywhere are pouring out some of their Huel in mourning.

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