(Photo Credit: Bastian)
After eight years of tenure, Alessandro Michele left the Italian luxury brand Gucci.
The global luxury group Kering issued a press release on November 23rd confirming that Alessandro Michele is leaving Gucci. However, no successor has been announced.
The president and CEO of Gucci Marco Bizzarri said in a press release that he was fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Alessandro at the end of 2014. Since then, they worked together as Gucci has charted its successful path over these last eight years.
He continued by thanking Michele for his 20 years of commitment to Gucci and for his vision, and devotion to Gucci.
But unexpected change at the top has become a pattern at Kering Group. The first unexpected change was made by François-Henri Pinault, chairman & CEO of Kering, in 2004 when he parted ways with Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole.
Pinault said in the press release the road that Gucci and Alessandro walked together over the past years is unique and will remain an outstanding moment in the history of the brand.
During his eight years as creative director, Michele managed to almost triple Gucci’s revenue. However, lately according to Luca Solca of the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein, customers were experiencing brand fatigue and sales were sluggish. To re-energize the brand, picking a new creative talent was seen as suitable.
Data Analyst Parmida Tekin who works for the fashion management company Brandcared commented on Michele’s departure saying that: “Alessandro Michelle has been a fantastic creative director for Gucci since 2015. The brand managed to be the fourth brand that made the most NFT revenue, with $11.56 million.”
This success reflects their brand value as an increase from $15,599 million in 2021 to $18,110 million in 2022. So, according to this improvement, why is the Kering group separating its way from Alessandro Michele, Tekin questioned. Because even though Gucci achieved many recently, the designs didn’t show the same performance which led to a change in the direction she concluded.