The former Gucci designer will start work next Tuesday

It was just “a rumour” up to yesterday. But today, WWD and Vogue Business and other news outlets have reported that Alessandro Michele, who left Gucci in 2022, will be going to Valentino. Mr Michele himself announced on his Instagram page just six minutes ago that the Italian house has opened their arms to him. “It’s an incredible honor for me to be welcomed in the Maison Valentino,” he wrote, suggesting that there was something organic about his appointment. “I feel the immense joy and the huge responsibility in entering a Maison de Couture that has engraved the word ‘beauty’ in a collective story, made of distinctive elegance, refinement and extreme grace.” With Mr Michele, Valentino would have their fourth creative director since Valentino Garavani retired in 2007

As with his show notes and press releases for Gucci, Mr Michele was florid in his new-job announcement. He wrote about the house’s “richness of cultural and symbolic heritage” and “precious identity given with their wildest love by founding fathers, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti.” Against this “essential source of inspiration”, he added, “I’m going to praise such influence through my own interpretation and creative vision.” In those words, we can’t help but sense that Mr Michele intends to resuscitate his version of Gucci at Valentino, with the former brand’s output of puerile goofiness, contrived geekiness, and retro-gauche intact. To be sure, under Pierpaolo Piccioli’s watch, Valentino was not a minimalist brand, but neither was it a meretricious mayhem. At 51, Mr Michele is probably not ready to retire his heavy-handed maximalism.

“I’m going to praise such influence through my own interpretation and creative vision.”

Alessandro Michele

The confirmation of his employment came rather quickly. Pierpaolo Piccioli announced his leaving only a week ago. WWD broke the news last Friday. At the time, the company said that a new creative director will be announced “soon”. But we did not think it would be this quickly. A sudden stepping down and a rapid appointment (also, Mr Michele, according to Vogue Business, starts work next Tuesday) seem to suggest something more than a mutual parting of ways, or “joint decision”, as it was stated in the official announcement. Did Piccioli know months earlier that he will depart and hence the mournfully all-black last collection of autumn/winter 2024? It took Gucci far longer than a week to replace Mr Michele with Sabato de Sarno (and Gucci did put out interim collections, but Valentino’s men’s show in June is cancelled, as well as the couture). The chatter now is that Valentino had planned to install Mr Michele as the brand’s creative head for a while.

Valentino is controlled by Qatar investment fund Mayhoola (For Investments), which is backed by the Qatari royal family and, according to Forbes, with French luxury group Kering securing a 30 percent stake. As reported in the media, CEO of Mayhoola, Rachid Mohamed Rachid (Mr Michele thanked him in his IG message), had approached the designer last year to be the CD of Walter Albini, an Italian name (popular in the ’80s) that Mr Rachid, via another fund—Bidayat—had acquired. Apparently Mr Michele rejected the offer as accepting it would have meant “investment” in the project. Valentino is clearly a much more appealing brand as there would be no need to awaken the dead. “May my bow, wide open arms,” as Alessandro Michele wrote on IG, “speak for itself and salute in this early spring the regeneration of life and the promise of new blooming.” That, to us, sounds rather hippie—a warning to ourselves.

Watch this space for Alessandro Michele’s debut Valentino collection. Photo: alessandro_michele/Instagram