Red, green and gold paint a Formula One car. The first luxury fashion house to title-sponsor a Formula One team has signed its name across the grid, and the colours arrive in March 2027.
The announcement came out of Paris on 27 May. Demna stood on a small stage beside Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto, the two Alpine drivers. Francesca Bellettini was there for Gucci. Philippe Krief and Flavio Briatore were there for Alpine. François-Henri Pinault was there for Kering, François Provost for the Renault Group. The text was short. Alpine becomes the Gucci Racing Alpine Formula One Team from the 2027 season. The cars will carry Gucci’s signature red, green and gold. A dedicated identity joins the livery: an interlocking double-G with the word Racing set beneath.
The deal
This is the first title partnership between a luxury fashion house and a Formula One team. Houses have sat in trophy cases and on race suits before, never on the team name. The partnership is multi-year. Bellettini, Gucci’s president and chief executive, called the move a new chapter for the house in a statement that framed the deal on shared values of performance, precision, discipline and excellence at the intersection of luxury and sport.
Alpine currently sits fifth in the 2026 constructors’ standings. Briatore, the team’s executive advisor, framed the partnership as evidence of momentum, noting Alpine has its best points total to open any season in its history. Provost, the Renault Group chief executive, said the partnership aims to reach new audiences and younger generations. Kering needs that too. Gucci accounts for the largest single share of the group’s revenue, and the brand has been in a turnaround chapter for the better part of two years. The grid offers a quarter-billion viewers across two dozen race weekends and a chance to put the house in front of demographics the runway alone cannot reach.
Demna’s first year
Demna left Balenciaga in summer 2025 after a decade. He took the creative direction at Gucci in July, and brought the theatre with him. The first collection landed alongside a short film called The Tiger, directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, starring Demi Moore. The debut runway built a marble set inside Milan that read like a hall lifted out of the Uffizi.
The Salone del Mobile installation in April hung the house’s history as tapestries. In May, Demna shut down Times Square for the Cruise 2027 show. Mariah Carey watched from the front row beside Kim Kardashian and Playboi Carti. Paris Hilton, Tom Brady and Emily Ratajkowski walked the runway. Sport has been in the picture all along. Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, currently the world number ones in men’s and women’s tennis, carry Gucci bags onto court. The campaign launched before the French Open ran with the tagline The Original Sinner.
Gucci Cruise 2027, Times Square · Courtesy of Gucci
Why Formula One
The sport has changed audience over the past five years. Netflix’s Drive to Survive opened a door that did not close. The grid now pulls a global audience that maps cleanly to luxury’s expansion targets in the Gulf, Southeast Asia and the Americas. The 2027 calendar already runs twenty-four races across five continents, with weekends in Monaco, Singapore, Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi and São Paulo on the list.
Each of those addresses also carries a Gucci flagship. The paddock weekends bring the cohort the house already courts: ambassadors, celebrities, sovereign wealth, the global rich. Hospitality tents read like a closed party with a viewing deck. The brand gets twenty-four such weekends a year, in the cities where its boutiques are open three blocks away.
The first luxury house to take title on a Formula One grid. The signature is bigger than the colour scheme.
The Splendid EditWhat changes
Title sponsorship in Formula One reshapes more than a livery. It puts a brand on race suits, garage panels, transport trucks, helmet decals, hospitality tents and team kit. Gucci has not yet released the design language for any of this beyond the colour palette and the partnership mark. The team retains its corporate name structure. Gasly and Colapinto stay in the cars through 2026. The 2027 driver lineup has not been confirmed.
Other houses have flirted with motorsport. Louis Vuitton trophies the winners. TAG Heuer times the laps. Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss sit on Mercedes overalls. None have gone in for full title partnership. The line a luxury brand was historically told not to cross, the line between cultural patronage and competitive partnership, is where Gucci has put its name.
The signal
Bellettini closed her statement by saying there was more to come, without naming what. The cars carry the colours from 2027. The merchandise, the campaigns, the films, the racing-line capsules, those arrive on a schedule the house has not shared. Demna’s collections have a clear running theme of taking codes meant for one stage and putting them on another. The grid is the next stage. The Gucci paint comes onto a car that is climbing. The first lap is twelve months out.
The Gucci Racing Alpine Formula One Team races from the 2027 Formula One season. Announcement details and partnership statements published 27 May 2026.
Photography courtesy of Gucci