Alessandro Michele leaves the creative direction of Gucci: end of an era for the Florentine fashion house

The rumor began to circulate on November 22, following a news that rained down on us like a cold shower from wwd. Then, today, the lapidary confirmation of the Kering group: «Gucci announces today that Alessandro Michele is stepping down as Creative Director».

Marco Bizzarri, President and CEO of Gucci, said: «I was lucky enough to meet Alessandro at the end of 2014. Since then we have had the pleasure of working side by side, as Gucci charted its path to success, over the last eight years. I want to thank Alessandro for his twenty-year commitment to Gucci and, for his vision, dedication and unconditional love for this unique Maison, over the years as Creative Director ».

Francois-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO of Kering, said: «The path that Gucci and Alessandro have traveled together in recent years is unique and will remain an exceptional moment in the history of this Maison. I am grateful to Alessandro for bringing so much of himself into this adventure. His passion, his imagination, his ingenuity and his knowledge have put Gucci at center stage, in the place he deserves. I wish him all the best in the next chapter of his creative journey.”

Alexander Michael, the person concerned, finally declared: «There are times when the paths separate due to the different perspectives that each of us may have. Today an extraordinary journey ends for me, which lasted more than twenty years, within a company to which I have tirelessly dedicated all my love and my creative passion. During this long period, Gucci has been my home, my adopted family. To this extended family, to all the individual people who have cared for and supported it, go my heartfelt thanks, my biggest and most moved embrace. Together with them I have desired, dreamed, imagined. Without them none of what I have built would have been possible. To them therefore my most sincere wish: may you continue to feed on your dreams, subtle and impalpable matter that makes a life worth living. May you continue to feed on poetic and inclusive imagery, remaining faithful to your values. May you always live by your passions, driven by the wind of freedom”.

According to rumors, the decision was motivated by the dissatisfaction of François-Henri Pinault who, after thehype initially generated by Michele’s brilliant debut at Gucci, he would recently turn up his nose at less performing sales than expected. Yet, let’s talk about a brand that last Lyst Index Q3 of 2022 – a quarterly ranking of the most desired fashion brands and products on a global scale – turned out to be firmly in the lead. Faced with a request for a change of creative direction, however, the designer would have responded by continuing straight on his way, disregarding the requests that came from above.

“Coffee changed my life. I was on the verge of resigning, and instead then…»: this is how the now former creative director of Gucci expressed himself just a year ago on his debut in January 2015. The custodian of this declaration, which reconstructs the exact moment in which he was proposed to take over the creative reins of the maison, is the radio episode which in July 2021 saw Alexander Michael host of Wild Moss, the podcast of Fedez and Luis Sal. But who was sitting on the other side, just beyond the coffee?

Marco Bizzari, recently appointed CEO of the brand: it was he who wanted that Michele picked up the baton left by the previous creative director Frida Giannini. “He was chosen to fill the role of creative director of Gucci based on his contemporary vision of the brand – explained Bizzarri in a statement reported by Only 24 Hours, – which he has been able to develop over the years and which he will shape starting today». Ready more than ever to bring his stylistic hallmark to maximum splendour, the Roman-born designer had already spent almost 15 years in the company, first alongside Tom Fordwho in 2002 called him to take care of the design of the accessories (Michele came from Fendi) and then in the era of Frida Giannini.

The Gucci brand has been a field of profound experimentation for Alessandro Michele. «All the things you saw later come from my belly – he explained to Wild Moss. – I did really strange things, they allowed me to do them and strangely they happened in freedom, producing interesting things». Last but not least was the Gucci fashion show Twinsburgthe (twin) offspring of his Spring-Summer 2023 fashion collection presented last September in Milan.

The most experimental thing of all? If we have recently seen the collaboration with Harry Styles (summarized by the crasis Gucci HA HAH for Harry and A for Alessandro), the one with adidas for Fall Winter 2022/2023 will certainly remain in history and L’creative hacking in the Balenciaga archives for the hundredth anniversary of Gucci. On the other hand, for Alessandro Michele “there are no faults in creating”, ergo everything is allowed. The concept of hacking (woe to call it collaboration) seems to have been the idea of ​​Balenciaga’s creative director colleague: «Demna invented it in a phone call. I was a bit more sneaky, I thought of it more as a loan».

Already more than a hundred years of Gucci, only seven those that Alessandro Michele has spent at its helm. Few? Points of view. Nevertheless, they were enough to even exorcise Tom Ford’s pastwhose break with Gucci – as Ford himself defined it in an interview with Corriere della Sera – had been «traumatic and depressing». Thanks to that red velvet (and genderless) suit included in the collection show Gucci Air in 2021, a tribute to an archival piece that would later be flaunted on the front row in Los Angeles by her friend actress Gwyneth Paltrow: «I found it the most sincere way to compliment me», admitted the designer, emphasizing how much the admiration for Michele had helped him to detach himself from Gucci for good. “It was a kind of psychological therapy.”

The Gucci Spring-Summer 2023 fashion show at Milan Fashion Week

Now, if on the one hand the gossip rages on who will take his place in the coveted but also burning seaton the other hand we are already wondering what will be the next chapter of Alessandro Michele. Don’t go and talk to him about the future though, because he has already taught us about it in the podcast: «In life it’s nice not to hypothesize anything». You never know that the next creative direction is just around the corner.