Alessandro Michele Exits Gucci After 20 Years at Company; 6 As Creative Director

Alessandro Michele has split with Gucci.

Following a rumor about his exit, the fashion house confirmed that the creative director would be leaving the company after 20 years.

Click inside to read more…

Gucci and their parent company, Kering, confirmed Alessandro was leaving, and relinquishing his role.

“I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Alessandro at the end of 2014, since then we have had the pleasure to work closely together as Gucci has charted its successful path over these last eight years,” Gucci president and CEO Marco Bizzarri in a statement via WWD. “I would like to thank him for his 20 years of commitment to Gucci and for his vision, devotion and unconditional love for this unique house during his tenure as creative director.”

Alessandro then added in his own statement on the decision: “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 20 years, within a company to which I have tirelessly dedicated all my love and creative passion.”

He continued, “During this long period, Gucci has been my home, my adopted family. 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.”

According to the first reports, Alessandro was “asked to initiate a strong design shift” to light a fire under the brand, but the designer did not meet the request, while another source said that chairman and CEO of Kering François-Henri Pinault is looking at a change of pace for the group’s star brand.

Alessandro just recently attended the Met Gala with Jared Leto.