Alessandro Michele (pictured from Instagram) remains diplomatic. Two and a half years after being ousted from Gucci, he does not launch any attacks against his former employers. Instead, he wishes them all the best. However, in his interview with Corriere della Sera, he subtly takes the opportunity to get a few things off his chest. Now that Kering’s flagship brand – still trapped in a seemingly endless crisis – has just dismissed Sabato De Sarno, Michele can look back on his own tenure with a sense of accomplishment. Even in its slower phases, Gucci’s performance under him was far stronger than it is today.
When he was kicked out of Gucci
“When you left Gucci, it was still growing, albeit not as much as in the early days”, the interviewer points out. “18%, which today…” is Michele’s reply. In those trailing dots, the implication is clear: such a result would now be considered a miracle. In case there was any doubt, the designer – now at the helm of Valentino – takes credit for Gucci’s meteoric rise. “We invented the turbo: the only brand, I believe, that in the last three decades went from 3 billion to 10 billion in just eight years. Then I left…” Once again, he allows the ellipsis to speak for itself, reflecting on what has happened since autumn 2022. That was when De Sarno (recently dismissed, as mentioned) and Jean-François Palus (now replaced by Stefano Cantino) took over from Michele and former CEO Marco Bizzarri, under the leadership of Francesca Bellettini.
A foot in the present
Still, Michele does not shy away from the market’s verdict. While his achievements at Gucci are now part of fashion history, he must prove he can still succeed in his new role at Valentino. That is why, as he subtly hints, he welcomes the shifting expectations in the luxury business. When he left Kering due to slowing financial results, it was not simply a matter of “single-minded greed”.
“In the sense,” he explains, “that we live in a world where we are all constrained – and I include myself in that. When I worked there, Gucci was a ten-headed monster, but I believe this is a global issue”. He senses a change in the air. “I feel that fashion is now developing a much greater awareness”, he concludes, “of where we are, what is happening, and the fact that the artificially inflated world of economics has reached a kind of healthy end of the line”.
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