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Alessandro Michele is the new creative director of Valentino. The Roman designer’s first day at Rome’s archetypal couture house will be next Tuesday, 2 April. His debut collection under the Valentino flag will be Spring/Summer 2025: under current plans, it will be unveiled during this September’s edition of Paris Fashion Week at what will be the most anticipated show of the season.
“It’s an incredible honour,” said Michele of his appointment in a statement today. He added: “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.”
He will work from one of fashion’s most beautiful offices: Valentino’s studio in Palazzo Mignanelli, a few moments from the Spanish Steps. Among his duties will be designing couture collections for the first time.
Speaking of the prospect, he said: “I search for words to nominate the joy, to regard it, to really convey what I feel; the smiles that kick from the chest, the bliss of gratitude that lights up the eyes, that precious moment when necessity and beauty reach out and meet. Joy, though, is such a living thing that I’m afraid to hurt it if I dare to speak its name.”
That joy is not confined to Michele. His appointment has been overseen by Valentino’s CEO, Jacopo Venturini. The two men previously worked as colleagues at Gucci, where Michele spent seven years as creative director, and Venturini was vice president of merchandising and global markets.
Praising Michele’s “profound intelligence” and “wonderful lightness”, Venturini said: “I am very happy and excited to return to work with Alessandro.” He added: “I am certain that the reinterpretation of the Maison’s couture codes and the heritage created by Mr Valentino Garavani, combined with Alessandro’s extraordinary vision, will bring us moments of great emotion and will translate into irresistibly desirable objects.” The newly appointed creative director described Venturini as: “an extraordinary professional, able to combine pragmatism and strategic vision, competence and sensibility”.
At Gucci, Michele’s ability to conjure “irresistibly desirable objects” transformed the fortunes of the house, nearly tripling revenues from €3.5 billion in 2014 to €9.73 billion in 2022. This is one reason why, ever since his departure in November that year, speculation about his next creative home has swirled near-constantly. In the end, all roads led to Rome.