Gucci Splits Into Category Business Units as Demna Era Begins

Gucci is reorganizing itself into four category-based business units — leather goods, women's ready-to-wear, men's ready-to-wear and shoes — each with a dedicated lead reporting to chief product officer Marcello Costa, according to an internal memo seen by WWD. The move separates runway fashion collections from core "wardrobing" staples into two distinct development flows, each with its own calendar, plan and decision-making process.

The structure is designed to support artistic director Demna's creativity while giving the commercial side clearer accountability. Monica Ulmi and Marco Semeghini join as senior advisers to the business units, based between Milan and Florence, working alongside Demna and president and chief executive officer Francesca Bellettini.

Both are Gucci returnees with long merchandising pedigrees.

• Ulmi joined Gucci in 1996 as leather goods merchandising director, a role she held until 2004, then served as merchandising director until 2008. She moved to Salvatore Ferragamo from 2009 to 2010 and Versace from 2010 to 2018. Since then she has worked as an independent merchandising adviser.
• Semeghini started in 1991 at Italian department store Rinascente, joined Gucci in 1996 and rose through buying and merchandising roles until 2005. He was worldwide director of merchandising, product and product development at Tom Ford from 2005 to 2010, then director of product and product development at Canali from 2010 to 2014. He has since consulted and taught fashion business and luxury marketing strategy at Istituto Marangoni and NYU in Florence.

What does the structure change in practice?

Each business unit consolidates merchandising, collection coordination and core collection design, in close partnership with product development. It is accountable end-to-end for its category — from the core plan through calendar and development, including icons, wardrobe pieces, drops and made-to-order client requests adapted from the shows.

The memo frames the aim as "greater focus, clearer ownership and stronger accountability, helping the company make better and faster decisions, while protecting what matters most: creativity, the excellence of Gucci's products and its clients."

The two collection streams operate on parallel tracks. The fashion collections and the core collections each have a dedicated design team, both stemming from Demna's vision. In merchandising terms, this is a formal admission that catwalk product and replenishment staples should not share a single development calendar — a decision with direct consequences for lead times, assortment planning and how quickly wardrobe icons can be scaled.

Costa's elevation anchors the structure. He joined Gucci in February 2025 with more than two decades of experience at Bottega Veneta, Miu Miu and Stella McCartney, and was promoted to chief merchandising officer in May 2025 before taking the chief product officer role.

Italy stays the engine

The memo underscores that the core engine of the house — from design to development and execution — remains anchored in Italy. Both senior advisers will sit in Milan and Florence, reinforcing the Florentine house's domestic production and development base rather than shifting decision-making abroad.

For sourcing and supply-chain watchers, the significance is procedural rather than headline-grabbing: separate calendars for runway and core mean separate development timelines, and end-to-end unit accountability concentrates responsibility for made-to-order and drop execution inside each category. Whether faster decisions materialize will show up first in collection turnaround, not in statements.

The reorganization takes effect as Demna's first collections move through the pipeline, with Bellettini betting that veteran merchandising discipline can carry a creative reset without slowing it.