Valentino, Alessandro Michele is the new creative director

The rumours, the wait and finally the confirmation: Alessandro Michele is the new creative director of the Valentino fashion house. An important and significant change of structure in the world of fashion, a bolt from the blue of which we can still hear the echoes of the sudden exit from the scene – totally unexpected – of the now former creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli.

The official news is given Vogue Business: «It's an incredible honor – declares Alessandro Michele to the source. – I feel the immense joy and enormous responsibility of joining a Maison de Couture that has the word “beauty” carved into a collective history, made of distinctive elegance, refinement and extreme grace. I'm looking for words to express joy, to really communicate what I feel; the smiles that flow from the chest, the state of bliss that comes from gratitude and lights up the eyes, that precious moment in which necessity and beauty meet. Joy, however, is something so alive that I fear I will hurt it by even daring to say its name.”

Alessandro Michele, former creative director of Gucci.

Daniele Venturelli

The appointment of Alessandro Michele definitively puts an end to the (concluded) partnership between Pierpaolo Piccioli and Valentino, which lasted a quarter of a century. First in the style office and then as creative director, the fifty-six-year-old designer from Nettuno spent twenty-five years within the company founded in 1959 in Rome by the great Maestro Valentino Garavani. Incredible to think that all this is over in the blink of an eye, yet it is already time to look to the future. Indeed, to the here and now. From today a new chapter begins, and Alessandro Michele will continue the direction of the Valentino fashion house.

The wealth of experience that the 51-year-old designer from Rome brings with him is no small feat, one could even say that it is more unique than rare. It was November 23, 2022 when he announced the news of his farewell to Gucci after only five years in his prestigious role. That decision, which was perceived by the public as painful due to the lack of a common vision (with the Kering group, It goes without saying), however, it took place in full awareness of a great merit: having made Gucci the most desired Italian brand on a global scale. And the Valentino fashion house, which according to WWD would currently have a turnover somewhat lower than Gucci, it could benefit from the hype phenomenon that will result from this shock.

Alessandro Michele and Jared Leto at the 2022 Met Gala.

Taylor Hill/Getty Images

As for what to expect from Alessandro Michele at the helm of Valentino, many of the clues are precisely in the last words with which the new director greeted the Florentine fashion house: «May you continue to nourish yourself with poetic and inclusive imagery, remaining faithful to your values. May you always live from your passions, driven by the wind of freedom”, he had wished his office in his style as he left.

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Poetic imaginaries, values, freedom: concepts already known to the Valentino maison, which with Pierpaolo Piccioli have reached very high expressive heights. But which with Alessandro Michele could now take on completely new connotations, unknown to the history of the maison but still faithful to the heritage and archives of the Italian brand. How Alessandro Michele's stylistic signature will be placed inside Palazzo Mignanelli, the brand's historic headquarters in Rome, is all to be discovered. Meanwhile, we can already look forward to the debut with the first collection. Most of the time always.