Good morning and welcome to a new chapter of What’s happening in the fashion industry, that sector in which everything seems beautiful but things get ugly easily. For example, the end of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s 25-year working relationship with Valentino. When the designer’s departure was made public last Friday, few thought it had occurred on bad terms. The farewell that the firm’s employees organized for him this week, which included a banner that read “We are too young to be left without dreams,” only allows us to conclude the opposite.
In fashion (some would say in life) nothing is casual. This outcome, which seemed abrupt, began to be written in July 2023, the day the Kering group and the Mayhoola investment fund, owner of Valentino, announced that the former had acquired 30% of the firm for 1.7 billion euros in cash in an operation that included the option to purchase 100% by 2028. For years the idea had been established that Kering, chaired by François-Henri Pinault, could only really compete with LVMH (the conglomerate of the largest luxury brands in the world owned by Bernard Arnault) becoming one of those big names that come accompanied by their legend. It turned out to be Valentino.
The amount of the agreement, 1.7 billion euros, seemed disproportionate considering that in 2022 Valentino had generated 1.4 billion, which made it clear that Kering’s purpose was to scale that figure. What is the fastest way to increase sales or what has been Kering’s historical strategy with Gucci or Saint Laurent? More bags and more shoes, which are economical to produce and simple to sell.
Pierpaolo Piccoli is a fashion designer, not a product designer, and that’s why he didn’t fit into the equation. Pinault also tends to choose younger creative profiles (and with lower salary expectations) for the brands in his group (read, for example, Seàn McGirr at McQueen or Sabato de Sarno at Gucci). In the press release that accompanied the announcement last year, furthermore, Piccioli was not mentioned until the last paragraph, which is in lowercase letters and is normally dedicated to telling the history of the firm. In other words: the one that no one gets to read.
A small parenthesis before returning to the point where we left off: although the Valentino purchase agreement was for Valentino and only for Valentino, within Mayhoola there have been other goodbyes in recent days: Jean-Jacques Guével and Txampi Diz, CEO and CMO of Balmain until March 19, have left the firm “to dedicate themselves to other interests.” Connect the dots as the reader sees fit.
Piccioli’s farewell, the announcement of the absolutely voluntary retirement of Dries Van Noten and the resignation for personal reasons of Walter Chiapponi from Blumarine in the same week have left fashion fans very busy looking for new jobs for designers who do not They have a signature and for brands that do not have a designer. Piccioli is placed in Gucci (it would make little to no sense considering all the above, and there are those who say that the designer prefers to try his luck in the world of cinema) despite the fact that nothing seems to indicate that Sabato will leave. Sarno; and Alessandro Michele, who until now seemed headed for Bulgari or Fendi, is placed at Valentino (if he didn’t leave Gucci with a handshake either, why would he want to work for Kering again?). Rumors about Michele, by the way, have been revived by the paparazzi photographs that were published this week in which he appears with Dakota Johnson in Rome.
Sarah Burton, who left McQueen last year, and Clare Waight Keller, who left Givenchy in 2020, are still not on any roster, but are expected. Givenchy does not have a designer and, although this fire does not need more fuel, there are those who also speculate about the replacements of Michael Kors, Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren.
Fashion brands are not the only sector of the industry in which layoffs occur. Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue, GQ, and The New Yorker, continues the eternal, painful and disastrous negotiation process with its workers union to “free” 5% of its workforce (more than 300 workers) that began in November ; and on Tuesday, almost all members of her editorial team were fired from i-D (the independent publication that supermodel Karlie Kloss acquired late last year). Olivia Singer, its global editorial director, and editor Mahoro Seward remain on the project. At least for now.
