Shutting down a high-traffic public hotspot is essentially child’s play for Gucci. There was the Gucci Love Parade in 2021, when the brand closed off a section of Hollywood Boulevard, allowing models to stride past iconic landmarks. And last year, for Cruise 2026, Florence’s Palazzo Settimanni served as the chosen venue, with the finale extending into Piazza Santo Spirito, one of the city’s liveliest public squares. This year, Gucci set its sights on New York’s Times Square for the Cruise 2027 show, aptly dubbed GucciCore.
Considering the magnitude of the location — and the fact that it was Demna’s first Cruise collection for the Italian label — it comes as no surprise that the brand went big with both the presentation and the guest list. In addition to a star-studded front row that included Mariah Carey, Lindsay Lohan, and Iman, the runway itself was a celebrity spectacle. In an effort to capture the “stylistic cross-section of New York City, from Madison Avenue to Brooklyn, SoHo to Harlem, and Fifth Avenue,” Demna tapped some of the biggest names across the fashion, sports, and lifestyle worlds, including Paris Hilton, Tom Brady, Amelia Gray Hamlin, and Athena Calderone.
“Stockbrokers and businesspeople in pinstripes, ladies who lunch in shearling coats worn with a studied insouciance, skaters in soft tailoring and slouchy denim, alongside perfectly poised philanthropists and socialites in gowns and pantsuits,” read the official show notes, painting a portrait of looks created to emulate the exclusive Gucci Galleria, the VIP-only gallery that sat above the brand’s flagship store in New York City in the 1980s. The private space hosted a “plurality of styles that intersect like the streets of the city,” a vibe Demna reimagined for Cruise 2027.
Ahead, see the A-list highlights from the iconic show.
