MICHELE, ALESSANDRO

BRAND AND FASHION DESIGNER ,   M

ALESSANDRO MICHELE, DIRECTOR OF GUCCI SINCE 2002

Alessandro Michele is the creative director of Gucci, the Florentine fashion house that he has been working for since 2002. He was born in RRenaissance Renaissance Rome on the 25th of November 1972 and graduated at the Academy of Costume and Fashion in Rome.

ORIGINS

Alessandro Michele

Michele Alessandro is an Italian stylist who grew up in Rome. His father was an Alitalia technician while his mother worked in the cinema world before leaving her job and dedicating herself to the family. She brought him closer to the taste for beauty and art. So much so that the designer enrolled in the Academy of Costume and fashion in Rome, with the dream of becoming a set designer.

Initially the road was not downhill for the young designer. He began working as a newsagent, a builder and a manual labourer to support himself and not burden the family too much.

The first opportunity in fashion arrived in 1994 when the designer left Rome for Bologna and joined the knitwear department of Les Copains. This experience was fundamental for Michele, because it marked the moment when his unquenchable passion for design was ignited. He created a book with his projects and sent it to some ateliers. Fendi gave him a positive response and hired him at the end of the 90s.

CAREER AT FENDI ALONGSIDE KARL LAGERFELD

Alessandro Michele fully started his training at Fendi. Working closely with the creative director of the time Karl Lagerfeld, the young designer was amazed by his vast culture in terms of fashion, music and art. Michele, with Lagerfeld, layed the foundation for his very personal aesthetic taste, thanks to the continuous inspirations and the intense stylistic and cultural training.

ARRIVAL AT GUCCI

In 2002 Tom Ford called him at Gucci, the famous Florentine maison. The designer flew from Rome to London. Where he started working first alongside Alessandra Facchinetti. Who had become the creative director of the women’s line and then with Frida Giannini in the accessory sector. In 2006 he became senior designer and in 2011 he was promoted to Associate creative director for Frida Giannini. Who had become the creative director of the brand in 2006. The partnership with Giannini lasted until 2015.

The designer is also a great interior lover, which is why he became the creative director of the Richard Ginori maison in 2014. A brand specializing in fine porcelain.

FALL-WINTER 15/16 MEN’S COLLECTION

Gucci Men autumn-winter 15/16

After Giannini’s sudden farewell to the creative direction, the Florentine maison remained uncovered. In January 2015 Marco Bizzarri was appointed the new Gucci CEO and among the first tasks to be carried out, there was the appointment of the new designer.

Alessandro Michele did not consider the possibility of this appointment, but after a face-to-face meeting with Bizzarri, the two had the same vision and ideas for the brand. The designer managed to complete the Fall-Winter 15/16 men’s collection in just one week. After those crucial days in Civita di Bagnoregio, the creative headquarters of the designer, the collection was exhibited in Milan during the fashion week.

His work was awarded by the press, which identified it as the best event of the year.

NEW CREATIVE DIRECTION OF GUCCI, THE REBIRTH OF A BRAND

Harry Styles in Gucci Tailoring Cruise 2019

After the great success at the Fashion Week, Michele was confirmed as the creative director of Gucci, a partnership that is still fruitful today. Since then, the Florentine brand has undergone a renaissance. The designer was able to infuse the brand with new lifeblood through color, numerous references to classical culture, symbolism, floral prints, androgynous lines, and genderless structures and for this reason revolutionary and perfectly suited to tell the story of modernity.

All his past and his interests converge in the collections: art, music, and cinema merge and detach themselves from the time they belong to combine his ideas of the present. After all, the designer himself told Angelo Flaccavento on Vogue: “Everything that inspires me and that I mention, whether it is yesterday or four centuries ago, happens to me at the same moment before my eyes, so it is present. It’s my present, my contemporaneity, and it’s the only thing I can and want to tell”.

Among the protagonists of his story, are the lead singer Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine), the singer Harry Styles, Jared Leto, Lana del Rey, Dakota Johnson, Saoirse Ronan, Beyoncé, and many others.

THE ABANDONMENT OF GUCCI’S CREATIVE DIRECTION

After a glittering career and a 7-year association with the Italian Maison, Michele will step down as creative director of Gucci in 2022, announcing on November 23rd.

The announcement turned out to be unexpected like a bolt from the blue and after 7 years, Michele leaves his place empty. 

In 2015 with the taking over of the artistic direction of Gucci, Alessandro Michele had introduced an innovative and incredibly attractive conceptuality into the mass, as he had been able to differentiate himself from stylistic homogeneity. His original designs had an unparalleled appeal in the fashion scene, even conquering the resilient segment of consumers totally disinterested in brands and trends. This is because Michele was able to attract different segments of the public, thanks to his refined, but at the same time falsely disinterested, as well as implicitly philosophical aesthetic.

THE RECENT SUCCESSES OF ALESSANDRO MICHELE 

In Michele’s collections, we find the theme of the double much discussed throughout the history of philosophy: masks, severed heads similar to those of the models who parade and look at the public, and twins on the catwalk.

In fact, during the S/S 2022-23 fashion show, pairs of homozygous models presented the Gucci collection hand in hand, going beyond the limit of illusion to bring an unprecedented show into reality, where not only the clothes but the person himself, was subjected to doubling.

DOUBLE THEME

Instead, during the autumn-winter 2018 fashion show, the models carried three-dimensional copies of their severed heads under their arms. This symbolism was intended to represent that poignant splitting of personality caused by the advent of digital. Michele has always been beyond simple design. In this case, he took inspiration from Donna Haraway’s philosophical conception and, in particular, from her 1984 Cyborg Manifesto.

THE AIM WAS TO NARRATE, THROUGH GARMENTS AND ACCESSORIES

The aim was to narrate, through garments and accessories, the theme of the double as an effect produced by the social mask that fashion imposes. One could even go so far as to say that Michele places himself in analogy with some theories inherent to the post-modern, according to which the contemporary is configured as a search for self-affirmation, in order to achieve individual uniqueness, however doomed to failure. The mass search for an ideal uniqueness leads to nothing other than conformity to the dictates of the algorithm and techno-scientific progress.

For FW 2019, Michele had also proposed provocative accessories in BDSM style, a Pirandellian and S&M mix. Here vulnerability and apparent determination meet in the figure of a non-conformist outsider who claims to dare, but who at the same time awaits a positive judgment from the gaze of Others.
Here too, in perfect line with the post-modern current, Michele makes sure to hide his pure inspiration, his Poetry, behind the simulacrum, behind a product that only acts as a scaffold for those who do not look beyond.

GENDER FLUIDITY

Not only. To date, gender fluidity is an extremely widespread reality, as well as a style appreciated by most. But it was Michele himself who inaugurated this style in all its provocative scope, thanks also to the campaigns carried out together with various celebrities, such as the actor, singer, and entrepreneur Jared Leto and the singer Harry Styles.

The designer’s greatest achievement was certainly that of being able to revolutionize the visual culture of a brand while reevaluating, at the same time, its precious heritage. Accustomed to the provocative sexiness of Tom Ford and the bon ton classicism of Vittorio Accornero’s scarves, the 70s maximalism with ethnic confluences and pop homages of Michele appeared like a polarizing force ready to detach Gucci from its center of gravity to orbit around it to new stars.

In fact, Michele was also able to revisit iconic pieces such as suits and blazers, always adding that exquisitely traditional touch of the Maison Gucci, together with extremely innovative elements that quickly established themselves in the brand’s identity.

TRADITIONALLY ORIGINAL

Michele brought about a re-evaluation and absolute celebration of the Gucci heritage but, at the same time, he was able to create a new identity fragment. The birth of the Marmont is associated with the renewal of the Diana and the Bamboo, alongside the limited edition graphics by Ken Scott proposed in 2021 we find the massive presence of the green and red striped Web texture, as well as infinite variations of the iconic Flora print originally created for Grace Kelly in 1966.

It has also brought logo mania back into vogue, primarily within the collections of the brand itself and then with collaborations. Among these, we include Adidas, Balenciaga, and the most recent the Palace streetwear brand.

ALESSANDRO MICHELE BECOMES THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF VALENTINO

Alessandro Michele will replace Pierpaolo Piccioli in the creative direction of the Maison. The first collection proposed by Michele for Valentino will be  Spring/Summer 2025  during  Paris Fashion Week in September 2024.

His official entry will be held just after Easter,  Tuesday 2 April 2024, and the designer will work in Rome at the studio in  Palazzo Mignanelli, a few moments from the Spanish Steps and just a 10-minute walk from his home.

In short, from Tuesday 2 April the designer will immerse himself completely in the reality and codes of Valentino.

“My first thought goes to this story: to the richness of its cultural and symbolic heritage, to the sense of wonder it constantly generates, to the precious identity given with their unbridled love by the founding fathers, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti. These references have always been an essential source of inspiration for me and I will praise this influence through my interpretation and creative vision.”

Furthermore, with Valentino Michele will finally have the opportunity to dedicate himself to  Haute Couture , of which we will most likely see the first collection in  January 2025 , not to mention that with this entry the designer will get closer to the Kering group, to which Gucci also belongs.

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