An ode to modern love in China: love, desire, and the art of being very Gucci

The curtain rises on a man and a woman crossing paths on a subway station platform. However, the scene soon veers off the usual romantic script. With a playful twist, the story unfolds to suggest that love is not always left to chance but sometimes needs a little plotting of its own. The miniature drama – titled The Platform Plot – is the first episode of a video series recently released by Gucci for the upcoming Qixi Festival, known as Chinese Valentine’s Day. In the three short films under the title For the Love of Drama, a younger generation of popular Chinese actors, all dressed in iconic looks by Demna, portray characters from diverse backgrounds and with sharply different personalities. Here the Qixi campaign raises a character-driven question central to the Italian luxury house’s recent storytelling: What kind of story might unfold around someone dressed in Gucci? Meanwhile, it marks another chapter in the house’s consistently distinctive narrative. A holiday campaign, or the next episode? In China, there has always been a concentrated rush for celebrity exposure, social engagement, and immediate commercial conversion around festive occasions from traditional holidays to modern-day celebrations. As emotional consumption has been playing an increasingly outsized role in purchase decisions over the past few years, the festive calendar has become an intensely contested moment for luxury brands. Each celebratory occasion presents not only a commercial opportunity but a chance to forge a deeper connection with consumers and win a lasting place in their affections. Amid the bustle, Gucci takes a different approach. Since fashion’s maverick Demna was appointed its artistic director last year, it has been carefully constructing a sustained narrative with a scope much larger than the occasion itself along with the associated cultural meanings. The drama series released in late July, featuring celebrities Wen Qi, Song Weilong, Tian Xiwei and Xiang Hanzhi, tells three love stories set in contemporary Chinese society. The characters’ wardrobes also carry the campaign’s romantic world into Gucci’s fashion language. The accompanying Qixi selection includes the new Jetset GG Marmont handbag, pre-launched in China ahead of its global release on August 6, as well as Vittoria pumps, GG Monogram bags, and hybrid loafer-sneakers. Together, the drama series offer a glimpse into the many forms modern love can take, especially at a time when shifting gender norms, reinterpretations of femininity, and changing expectations around intimacy are making love look markedly different from the versions that once dominated the screen. In a move away from heavy and sometimes rigid romance scripts rolled out for Qixi or Valentine’s Day, Gucci taps into a more fluid set of urban emotional realities. In doing so, Gucci presents modern love in China in a distinctly Gucci way. Rather than treating Qixi simply as a romantic occasion to be dressed in festive codes, the house pays tribute to the much-celebrated festival rooted in traditional Chinese legend with a witty, light-hearted love drama, while, more importantly, creating another narrative chapter that adds a new layer to its brand DNA. The long game of building ‘Gucciness’ For the century-old house hailing from Florence, that sense of continuity has always been there. What has become sharper and more pronounced in its recent campaigns is the way this heritage is being reframed through the theatrics of contemporary screen culture, including online micro dramas that have found a massive audience among young Chinese. Through these cinematic projects, Gucci follows a consistent creative logic and creates a narrative universe: turning clothing into character, character into story, and story into a fuller expression of the house’s identity. Only a few months into his tenure at Gucci, Demna unveiled his debut collection for the house – La Famiglia. Built around a cast of highly recognizable archetypes, the combination of reimagined and reproportioned archival designs and bold new pieces was presented in the form of a lookbook, followed by the premiere of The Tiger specially created in honor of this very first collection of Demna. Written and directed by award-winning filmmakers Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, the 33-minute surrealist, psychedelic film follows a fictional Gucci family set in an alternative universe. An all-star cast led by Demi Moore and Ed Harris, all dressed in extravagant Gucci looks, gives these characters relationships, tensions, and inner lives. The biting critique of luxury culture won a Gold Lion at the 2026 Cannes Lions and sparked extensive discussion from media and independent film critics, suggesting that the work entered a wider cultural conversation beyond its original commercial moment. Replacing the traditional runway show with the long-form satirical film was far removed from conventional fashion advertising. Its unprecedented format and ambition played a pivotal role in redefining luxury storytelling. Gucci has since then continued to carry forward this subversive spirit by using each project to sharpen attitude and character. As Demna wrote, Gucci is a “person” with “a wild, unforgettable past and unmistakable codes.” In treating the brand as “drama, passion, excess, contradiction, love and hate, triumph and collapse, pride and vulnerability, perseverance, chaos, genius” – all the qualities people themselves can contain, he has placed Gucci within the complexity of human character and high fashion within the realm of lived realities. One example in this lineage was its 2026 Chinese New Year campaign, The Gathering, featuring brand ambassadors Ni Ni and Song Weilong also in La Famiglia garments. Centering on a chosen family exchanging stories and creating new memories around a shared table, the short film, once again, goes against the grains as more of a loosely plotted meditation on belonging and connection than of a conventional tale of blood relatives culminating in a harmonious ending. This time, For the Love of Drama further expanded this narrative, in which romance offers another way to explore character. Alongside The Platform Plot, Rainy Day Interlude follows a reunion in a dark street under pouring rain, while Until We Meet Again sees a woman whose importance used to be downplayed in school making a surprise glowed-up appearance at a class reunion. Across the work, love unfolds through wit, irony, and humor, viewed through a Gucci lens finely tuned to the evolving gender dynamics in China. Much like The Tiger and The Gathering, this campaign transforms closely observed emotional realities into larger-than-life characters. Why this matters, especially in China What these campaigns have in common are engaging scripts, inventive direction, meticulous casting, tightly woven plots and, above all, emotional resonance grounded in modern-day realities. Together and gradually, they unveil the Gucci worldview and create a lasting memory about the brand in consumers’ minds. In addition to setting new standards for luxury campaigns, such unconventional storytelling offers a way to distill the essence of Gucciness, where distinct personalities are bound by a shared aesthetic language –retro, bold, wild, and daring. This approach carries particular weight in China, where luxury consumers increasingly seek individuality, personality, and diversity in what they buy just as much as aesthetics and taste. Gucci’s championing self-expression through its wardrobe and styling dovetails neatly with this prevailing domestic trend. According to a report on Chinese luxury consumption by MDRi, part of British law firm Mishcon de Reya, 68% of respondents said they were willing to spend more on experiences that create lasting memories, while 59% sought experiences that felt unique and memorable. Meanwhile, Bluebell, a brand curator and operator in Asia, found that 87% of respondents in China now favor timeless over trendiness. Therefore, in China, cultural motifs which could feel superficial or tokenistic and standalone seasonal campaigns are mattering less, even though short-term traffic can still make a brand visible or even viral. At a time when long-termism permeates the broader consumer mindset, sustained storytelling is what makes a brand memorable to Chinese consumers. This is precisely what Gucci has been doing: Even as collections, occasions, and protagonists change, its dedicated campaigns form a continuous thread that further builds the Gucciness through accumulation and goes beyond the seamless fusion of creativity and commerce. Each of the frames on the screen adds to the reservoir of associations around the brand, helping preserve its long-term desirability. Today, few brands are willing to give seasonal communications this degree of narrative ambition, or patient enough to let separate campaigns accumulate into a recognizable body of work. Though conceived for a single festival, the Qixi campaign continues the very Gucci narrative in high fashion, folding a new sequence into the Gucciness the house has cultivated for more than a century. For Gucci and its consumers, the campaign may end when the holiday is over, but its characters and the world they inhabit remain.

An ode to modern love in China: love, desire, and the art of being very Gucci

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag

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An ode to modern love in China: love, desire, and the art of being very Gucci

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag