TIME FOR A CHANGE. A startling example of how the fashion industry can really shake things up would be what Alessandro Michele did at Gucci after he was appointed creative director to replace Frida Giannini, with less than a week to conceptualize the entire fall/winter ’15/’16 menswear collection.
Alessandro Michele
John Galliano
Anthony Vaccarello and Donatella Versace
Not only did Michele manage to present a collection, he made headlines by altering Gucci’s sexy, mod aesthetics into something more romantic and poetic. Another head-turning appointment happened at Maison Margiela (previously Maison Martin Margiela). After its founder left more than a decade ago, the house finally welcomed a new—and rather controversial—creative director to sit at the brand’s helm: John Galliano. He quietly erased “Martin” from the brand’s name, although he remains loyal to the house’s design philosophies. Still, his menswear collection will only start debuting at next year’s spring/summer ’16 resentation, even as his womenswear outing showed a lot of promise. Also awaiting the debut of his inaugural collection is Anthony Vaccarello, who recently got to fill the creative director spot at Versus Versace—a younger, edgier line of Versace. Vaccarello’s initial collaboration with Donatella Versace herself for a capsule collection showed that his aesthetics were in line with the chief designer’s. However, what he will do for this sexy-meets-punk brand extension is still yet to be revealed.