Surprise departure. Valentino and its artistic director Pierpaolo Piccioli have just announced their separation.
Sixty-three black silhouettes to say goodbye. With hindsight, the message was clear, during the Valentino fall-winter 2024-2025 fashion show presented on Sunday March 3, 2024. However, it was a smiling Pierpaolo Piccioli who came to say hello at the end of the show. Did he already know that around twenty days later he would announce his departure from the Italian house?
Valentino and Pierpaolo Piccioli, 25 years of history
1999. Pierpaolo Piccioli begins his career at Valentino. At the time, he directed the label’s accessories line alongside a certain Maria Grazia Chiuri. In 2008, while Valentino Garavani, founder of the brand, said goodbye to fashion, the designer duo took over the artistic direction of the women’s, men’s and haute couture collections. But in July 2016, the tandem separated: Maria Grazia Chiuri moved to Dior and Pierpaolo Piccioli remained the sole captain aboard the Valentino ship. Under his pencil strokes, the house gives birth to silhouettes of crazy delicacy. Romantic embroideries, marvelous pleats, dazzling palettes… His collections are invading social networks as quickly as international red carpets. Zendaya, Anne Hathaway and Florence Pugh are among her most loyal admirers. The Kering group, which notably owns Saint Laurent, Gucci, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen and Boucheron, is also keenly interested in the Italian house. In November 2023, the company even acquired 30% of Valentino from Mayhoola, the investment company of Qatar’s ruling family, which also owns Balmain.
A moving farewell
To announce the end of this chapter, Pierpaolo Piccioli chose to publish a post on his Instagram account, followed by 1 million people. “We have created beauty: life, hope, opportunity, gratitude (…) the love that gives all the possibilities in the world, especially those that we cannot imagine on our own”he writes. “Thank you to everyone who made this possible in one way or another, it was a privilege to share my journey and dreams with you”. To illustrate his words, the designer published a photo of himself surrounded by the little hands of the house, who came to greet him at the fall-winter 2022-2023 haute couture show in Rome. If Pierpaolo Piccioli has not explained the reasons for his withdrawal from the label founded in 1960, he has not given any clue about his future projects either. Valentino, for his part, specifies: “A new creative organization for the home will be announced soon”. To be continued.