Prior to Demna’s first runway show for Gucci, held in Milan in February of last year, the Georgian designer posted a letter to Instagram outlining his vision for the Italian house. It documented the search for what he called the ‘Gucciness of Gucci’, a trip that took him to its native Florence (the house was founded in the Tuscan city in 1921) and to the vaunted galleries of the Uffizi Museum, where viewing Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in person for the first time led to a revelation.
‘Standing in front of it, I felt overwhelmed,’ he wrote. ‘The beauty in it was unconditional; it was absolute. It made me realise how deeply the Italian Renaissance shaped everything I understand about art, about proportion, about desire, and about beauty. When I left the museum and stepped into Piazza della Signoria, the first thing I saw was Palazzo Gucci. In that moment, I understood the place Gucci holds within Italian culture.’
Inside Gucci Palazzo in Florence
The exterior of Gucci Palazzo, which is housed in the 14th-century Palazzo della Mercanzia
Palazzo Gucci – which has previously been known as the Gucci Museo and the Gucci Garden – occupies Palazzo della Mercanzia, built in the 14th century as a place where merchants could resolve disputes through local tribunals. In the early 2000s, it became Gucci’s headquarters and archives in the city; in 2001, to mark the house’s 90th anniversary, it became the Gucci Museo. In 2018, under creative director Alessandro Michele, the project expanded, transforming into the Gucci Garden – an immersive installation curated by Maria Luisa Frisa – which also housed Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura, a restaurant by the three-Michelin-star Italian chef.
The importance of the address to the house (though it is not where Gucci was founded, it is often seen as its spiritual home) has made it a priority for the early part of Demna’s tenure, seeing it reopen this month as Palazzo Gucci with its inaugural exhibition titled ‘Gucci Storia’. Like the set for his first runway show, which was a marble-clad simulacrum of a historic art gallery, complete with hand-crafted recreations of classical statuary, Demna says that the display is based on the ‘idea of a museum of museums, a sequence of spaces in which distinctive worlds converge’.
A series of tapestries depicting Gucci’s history, first shown at Fuorisalone in Milan earlier this year
At the heart of this is a series of tapestries, first shown as part of Fuorisalone in Milan earlier this year, which depict the house’s 105-year history – from founder Guccio Gucci’s time at London’s Savoy Hotel as a bellboy to the ensuing tenures of Tom Ford, Frida Giannini, Alessandro Michele, and even Demna himself. ‘Gucci’s history in the 105 years since it was founded is filled with ups and downs. It has such a colourful past with lot of stories to tell,’ Demna told Wallpaper* at the time. ‘You see all the different eras of Gucci represented in these scenes, either literally or symbolically. The good times, the bad times, the drama; and the scenes are super elaborate; there are lots of symbolic details that tie back to Gucci’s codes.’
Other rooms include a gallery-like display of Catherine Opie images from his debut La Famiglia collection (he showed the S/S 2026 collection via lookbook the season before his runway debut); the ‘Archivio’, which displays objects from Gucci’s history as one might find curiosities in a ‘natural history museum’; a cinema, showing various short films from his tenure so far; alongside spaces dedicated photography, manufacturing, and more playful immersive scenes, like a digital ‘oracle’, promising to tell guests ‘as much about the house as themselves’.
Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura, which is now under executive chef Takahiko Kondo
Alongside Gucci Storia, the Gucci Osteria restaurant enters a new era: still overseen by Massimo Bottura, former executive chef Karime López has departed to pursue her own projects, and her former co-executive chef, Takahiko Kondo, has taken over. Born in Japan, Kondo’s menu is inspired by ‘personal memories, travels, and shared creativity’ (he spent 17 years at Bottura’s three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana in Modena before taking the Gucci Osteria role). Expect riffs on Italian classics in inventive style: these include Bottura’s famous Journey to Modena, a veal and pork tortellini in 24-month aged Parmigiano Reggiano sauce.
Gucci Storia is on view at Palazzo Gucci, Florence, now. Piazza della Signoria 10, 50122 Florence, Italy.