Alessandro Michele Leaves Gucci

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.

Mr. 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, 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 profits, earning almost 10 billion euros in revenue in 2021 — and it was Mr. Michele and Gucci’s chief executive, 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 though Mr. Michele had tried to expand Gucci’s reach via restaurants, the metaverse and collaborations with Adidas and 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 Mr. Michele was stepping down and would be leaving the company.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/style/gucci-designer-alessandro-michele.html