Gucci parts ways with star designer
In the largest creative shake-up of a fashion brand since the Covid-19 pandemic, Gucci announced on Wednesday that Alessandro Michele, its creative director, was leaving the company.
Michele, 49, a Rome-born designer who took over the top job in 2015, had been instrumental in transforming Gucci, seemingly overnight, from a fading symbol of noughties glamour into a purveyor of eccentric inclusivity that embodied the wider cultural conversation around gender, sexual identity and race.
His new vision for the brand rippled through the fashion industry and made tens of billions of dollars for Kering SA, the French luxury conglomerate that also owns Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, among other brands.
It was Gucci, however, that was responsible for the bulk of group profit, earning almost €10 billion in revenue in 2021 — and it was Michele and Gucci’s CEO, Marco Bizzarri, who were credited with the success.
At least as long as it was a success. Lately, however, the once unstoppable growth had started to slow. And although Michele had tried to expand Gucci’s reach via restaurants, the metaverse and collaborations with Adidas AG and singer, songwriter and actor Harry Styles, the basic offering began to elicit yawns rather than desire.
On Wednesday, 20 years after he joined the company, Gucci confirmed in a statement that Michele was stepping down and would be leaving the company.
“There are times when paths part ways because of the different perspectives each one of us may have,” Michele said in a characteristically florid statement that also gave thanks to Gucci’s employees.
“Today, an extraordinary journey ends for me, lasting more than 20 years, within a company to which I have tirelessly dedicated all my love and creative passion.”
Kering chair and CEO FrancoisHenri Pinault added that “the road that Gucci and Alessandro walked together over the years is unique and will remain
an outstanding moment in the history of the house.”
“The Gucci design team will continue to produce collections until a successor is announced,’’ the statement said.
“Gucci is suffering from brand fatigue, and consumers who bought early, particularly the Chinese, got bored first,” Luca Solca of the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein, said in a note to investors, stressing the importance of China to the Western luxury market and Gucci in particular (with the country responsible for more than one-third of all sales).
“In order to re-accelerate, it needs to open a new creative chapter,” he said. “We should credit Kering for knowing what they are doing, given they systematically and successfully revived faded brands in the past.”
Now focus will turn to what happens next with Gucci — just how much headspinning change comes next — and whether Bizzarri will also depart.
The brand is scheduled to reveal its next men’s collection in Milan in January. As always, the show will go on.