After 25 years, Italian luxury fashion house Valentino has a new creative director: Alessandro Michele.
The official news was announced via Vogue, with the publication also highlighting that Michele would begin his Valentino duties on Apr. 2, followed by a debut Spring/Summer 2025 collection. The latter will be presented during Paris Fashion Week in September.
"It’s an incredible honor," said Michele in a press statement. "I feel the immense joy and the huge responsibility to join a Maison de Couture that has the word ‘beauty’ carved on a collective story made of distinctive elegance, refinement, and extreme grace."
On the footsteps he follows in, Michele added: "My first thought goes to this story: to the richness of its cultural and symbolic heritage, to the sense of wonder it constantly generates, to the very precious identity given with their wildest love by founding fathers, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti. These references always represented an essential source of inspiration for me, and I’m going to praise such influence through my own interpretation and creative vision."
Michele succeeds former Valentino creative director, Pierpaolo Piccioli, who announced his departure from the luxury brand last week, per Vogue Business.
“I’ve been in this company for 25 years, and for 25 years I’ve existed and lived with the people who have woven the threads of this beautiful story that is mine and ours," Piccoli wrote in an Instagram post, translated from Italian to English. "Everything existed and exists thanks to the people I met, with whom I worked, with whom I shared dreams and created beauty, with whom I built something that belongs to all, and that remains immutable and tangible. This heritage of love, dreams, beauty and humanity, I carry it with me, today and forever."
