Parting Ways & Parting Perspectives: Alessandro Michele Departs Gucci

If you were one of the very few that missed Alessandro Michele’s Instagram post on 11/23/22, then you missed the holding of many breaths and several dropped jaws of Gucci lovers around the world.

For it was so well written and heartfelt that my southern mother stated ”It was as good as Shakespere.”

So, here is what Alessandro posted, in his own words:

“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 twenty years, within a company to which I have tirelessly dedicated all my love and creative passion. 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”.

Alessandro Michele led the House of Gucci for almost 8 years as Creative Director and has been with the brand for over twenty years. He joined the brand in 2002 as an accessories designer and was almost entirely unknown outside the company when he was named creative director, allowing him free rein over not just the products, but the stores, campaigns and communications (Article by The New York Times).

Alesssandro created an aesthetic that expressed sex in a very different way; a gender blending sex; a non binary sex that resonated with millennials (Video by Bloomberg Quicktake). He was unequivocally himself and was able to change the trajectory of Gucci giving a new fresh direction with his vision of the world and of how fashion resonates with everyone collectively.

Most recently, Alessandro’s incredibly thought provoking Twinsburg show at Milan Fashion Week had individuals watching from their phones in tears.

As he stated before the Twinsburg Show:

”There are times when I ask myself, why am I doing this? Somebody is talking about nuclear war. Politics is a catastrophe. The situation on the planet is a disaster,’’ Michele added. “But as human beings the only weapon we have is to imagine something else, and to make it happen.’’(Article by AP News)

The beauty in leaving creates unseen opportunities. One simply cannot imagine how much more the world will be graciously encouraged, but wait, as Alessandro so blatantly states…, “we have to imagine something else, and make that happen”.

It is apparent that Alessandro will make something else happen as he departs the house he so valiantly helped sculpt. I know I will be reminded of Alessandro's message and I hope others will too. We can all stop self sabotaging ourselves, others, our world, our planet.

We can encourage others to cultivate their dreams, nourish ourselves with poetic and inclusive imagery, live by our passions propelled by the wind of freedom and stop to imagine something else and make THAT happen.