On March 28, Valentino officially announced the appointment of Alessandro Michele as its new creative director.
The brand, which just last week announced the retirement of Pierpaolo Piccioli, seems to have decided on a new direction by bringing in Alessandro Michele as its new creative director.
Michele’s official appointment to the brand will begin on April 2, 2024. His first collection for Valentino will be presented at Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2025, which will take place this September.
Alessandro Michele, born in Rome, graduated from the prestigious fashion school “Accademia di Costume e di Moda” in 1994. He began his career at the Italian knitwear brand Les Copains. Michele then moved to Fendi, where he worked under Silvia Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld as a senior accessories designer, demonstrating his talent for designing exceptional leather goods.
In 2002, Michele moved to Tom Ford-led Gucci, where he worked behind the scenes in the design studio for 13 years. However, once Michele was tapped as the brand’s creative director in 2015, he fearlessly revamped Maison’s existing image, infusing it with the idea of maximalism and showcasing a rich array of patterns, colors, and materials. Also, with then-CEO Marco Bizzarri, he almost tripled sales from 3.5 billion euros in 2014 to 9.73 billion euros in 2022. Michele’s first line of fine jewelry, beauty line, and ristorante business for Gucci also helped the Maison take another leap forward.
He then retired as Creative Director of Gucci in late 2022. Since then, Michele has not been affiliated with the brand and has been a free agent.
In a statement about his appointment, Michele said, “It’s an incredible honour for me to be welcomed at Maison Valentino. I feel the immense joy and the huge responsibility to join a Maison de Couture that has the word ‘beauty’ carved on a collective story, made of distinctive elegance, refinement and extreme grace.”
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Valentino has indicated that they will not participate in the presentation of the menswear and haute couture collections, which were scheduled for June.