Notes on Alessandro Michele’s Valentino Appointment

Fashion

Today Valentino announced that it hired Gucci’s erstwhile creative director Alessandro Michele to lead its storied house. The appointment came just days after its current designer, Pierpaolo Piccioli was let go. 

This is a curious case. Usually, big guns are brought in to fix something, but Valentino did not seem to be broken, though “seem” is a key operating word here. Just like Michele, Piccioli is a talented designer and one of fashion’s darlings – his collections are universally lauded. And Valentino’s sales seem fine. In 2022, according to Reuters, it had revenues of 1.42 billion euros, 10% higher than its sales in 2021, which in turn were 15% above the year prior. On the strength of these numbers, Kering bought a 30% stake in Valentino from Mayhoola, a Qatar government investment fund that also owns Balmain, with an option to acquire the entire company by 2028. 

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VESTOJ X SZ: WHAT REVOLUTION? T-MAGAZINE, GUCCI, AND VETEMENTS.

Features/Op-Ed

We would like to announce our collaboration with Vestoj – the Platform for Critical Thinking on Fashion. Through an ongoing exchange of articles about recent fashion developments we will aim to delve deeper into the state of fashion and the fashion media today. In our first exchange we share reactions to a major piece published in T-Magazine of the New York Times. Stay tuned for the response from Vestoj to the article below.

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2015 – Gucci, Vetements, and Hype

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

This year is drawing to a close and a lot has happened in fashion, most of it not so good. I am not talking about the departed: Raf Simons from Dior (good for him), Alexander Wang from Balenciaga (good riddance), and Alber Elbaz from Lanvin (good lord!). I am talking about the arrivistes: namely, Gucci under Alessandro Michele and Vetements under Demna Gvasalia. And not just about them, but about the reaction on the part of the fashion media to their work.