Are creative director Alessandro Michele and Gucci parting ways? At least that is what “well-informed circles” say to the specialist magazine WWD.
An anonymous source told WWD that the designer was asked to “initiate a major design change” to revive the brand. However, Michele did not comply with this request. Another source said that François-Henri Pinault, CEO of Gucci mother Kering is aiming for a change of direction for the Italian fashion house, reports the specialist magazine.
When asked by FashionUnited, Gucci declined to comment on the change in personnel.
Has Gucci’s hype peaked under Michele?
Michele took on the role of Chief Designer for Frida Giannini in January 2015, having already appeared at the launch of the men’s FW15 collection. After Giannini’s departure, the Gucci creative team led by Michele took over responsibility for the design. The designer came from within the company and was previously Head of Design for Accessories at Gucci.
Marco Bizzarri, who went from general manager of luxury, couture and leather goods at Kerin to Gucci boss in 2015, made Michele the fashion house’s chief designer. The relaunch of the brand should be completed together in order to get back to the top of the fashion industry and to reach a younger target group.
Gucci also made it to the top, topping the Lyst shopping platform index multiple times. Since 2020, the brand consistently topped the list until the Balenciaga hype hit and knocked out the other Kering brand Gucci from the top spot in the third quarter of 2021. Although Gucci has been at the top of the Lyst index again since July and this year alone is convincing with exciting collaborations such as with Palace and Adidas as well as the Doppelganger collection for SS23, the Michele era may end before the hype fades.
A change at Gucci was already made at the end of October with the return to the classic calendar – separate collections for women and men within the framework of the respective fashion week.
“We are very happy to return to this formula after having limited ourselves to two shows a year for a number of reasons, first because of the pandemic and then because we decided with Alessandro Michele to keep this rhythm for another year” , Bizzarri said in October. “Now we have decided to have a greater focus on people, which has never been the case in the past. Now that the brand has reached its current size and following Alessandro’s aesthetic evolution, we felt it was essential to give menswear a special meaning.”