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After days of intense speculation, not even a week after the separation between Valentino and the magical Pierpaolo Piccioli, capable of an ineffable grace and a unique purity, finally the official announcement: the new creative director of the Roman maison will really be, as incited by the vox populi, Alessandro Michele, inactive since the breakup with Gucci in November 2022 and greatly regretted for the story-telling and not at all quiet verve so necessary in the wasteland of current fashion, market-driven as ever, quiet to the point of drowsiness, largely devoid of imagination.
There is nothing that the system loves more than the risk of creative directions and the promise of aesthetic reinvention that they entail: fashion’s raison d’être is perpetual change, at every level, without stopping. Michele’s rutilatory rocaille – as it is remembered by Gucci – is, on paper, a notable difference compared to Piccioli’s pictorial purity, but it must also be said that ten years have passed since that aesthetic struck a deep chord with the public. Michele is a decorator, rather than a creator of shapes: what will he do with couture? And with the silhouettes?
All the conjectures made at this height of events are pure fantasy: the comments and exegeses should be postponed to the debut in September. If this choice aims to confirm the value of creativity in a pale and bloodless panorama in which the creative director is now a puppet of management, it should be commended, as long as we do not fall into amnesia with respect to the recent past, and into foolish praise of new for the new. What is certain is that those are the names going around, and the decisions taken from above do not appear to be reckless, but rather predictable. But it is time that will give value. We just have to wait.