Italian designer Alessandro Michele on Wednesday left Gucci, where he has overseen a surge in sales at the fashion powerhouse since 2015 but seen his star fade in recent seasons. The Roman designer had an enormously successful nearly eight-year run as creative director that reversed the fortunes of the Italian heritage label and changed the look of fashion.
Michele was appointed creative director in January 2015, just days after he led a creative team that pulled together a menswear show in just five days, following the hasty exit of his predecessor. That collection announced Gucci’s new direction, with silken blouses for men featuring elaborate bows and ruffled necks along with fur-trimmed capes, as Michele redefined masculine dressing codes.
Alessandro announced the news with a long note on Instagram that read, "There are times when paths part ways because of the different perspectives each one of us may have. Today an extraordinary journey ends for me, lasting more than twenty years, within a company to which I have tirelessly dedicated all my love and creative passion. During this long period Gucci has been my home, my adopted family."
He further wrote, "To this extended family, to all the individuals, who have looked after and supported it, I send my most sincere thanks, my biggest and most heartfelt embrace. Together with them I have wished, dreamed, imagined. Without them, none of what I have built would have been possible. To them goes my most sincerest wish: may you continue to cultivate your dreams, the subtle and intangible matter that makes life worth living. May you continue to nourish yourselves with poetic and inclusive imagery, remaining faithful to your values. May you always live by your passions, propelled by the wind of freedom"
(Source: Instagram)
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