Former Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele Joins Valentino

The new creative director of Valentino has been announced.

Alessandro Michele, who left Gucci in 2022, is set to replace Pierpaolo Piccioli. “It’s an incredible honor,” Michele, 51, said in a statement, per Vogue. “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 continued: “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.”

Piccioli, 56, announced his departure from Valentino on March 22 after serving as the label’s creative designer for 25 years.

“We extend our deepest gratitude to Pierpaolo for writing an important chapter in the history of the Maison Valentino,” the brand’s chairman Rachid Mohamed Rachid shared in a statement. “His contribution over the past 25 years will leave an indelible mark.”

Michele, meanwhile, worked as Gucci’s creative director for seven years. In November 2022, the brand announced the “designer” would be stepping down from the gig.

“I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Alessandro at the end of 2014, since then we have had the pleasure to work closely together as Gucci has charted its successful path over these last eight years,” the company’s president Marco Bizzarri wrote in a memo.

He continued to praise the designer’s work: “I would like to thank him for his 20 years of commitment to Gucci and for his vision, devotion, and unconditional love for this unique House during his tenure as creative director.”

François-Henri Pinault, who is the CEO of Kering, also added his remarks. “The road that Gucci and Alessandro walked together over the past years is unique and will remain as an outstanding moment in the history of the House,” he gushed.