NEW YORK — Gucci‘s artistic director Demna loves a challenge, and on Saturday night, his ambition came to life in New York’s most bustling location: Times Square.
“Times Square, that was a bit of a crazy idea,” Demna told WWD during a preview ahead of his first cruise show for the Italian luxury house. Recalling that he “almost chickened out” after arriving in New York nearly two weeks ago and sauntering through the famous billboard-clad, tourist-crazed area, he noted that he and his teams were up for the seemingly impossible production.
“I always wanted to do a show in New York, like in the stock exchange; it’s something I did with my previous showing [for Balenciaga resort 2023]. I thought, I’ve done a show in New York, the one I wanted to do, but then when we’re talking about the show now, I thought, ‘Where do I do it now?,'” he recalled. “Out of the blue, I said, ‘What about Times Square?’
“It’s the first show in my career that I will not have a rehearsal for,” he explained of the complex process, including working with the city to secure permits, having mere hours before showtime for installations, forgoing a formal run-through in the venue and keeping the 9 p.m. cruise show location under wraps for security measures, to name a few. Times Square is as busy at 1 a.m. as it is at 11 a.m., certainly on the weekend, after all.
