MILAN — Maria Grazia Chiuri is returning to Fendi as chief inventive officer — and observers had been unanimously upbeat concerning the appointment.
Leveraging her expertise; her data of the model, the place she started her profession in style; her robust connection to Rome, the place Fendi is predicated; her sensible strategy to design, and her familiarity with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, its artisans and its provide chain in Italy, Chiuri is predicted to succeed on the style home, simply as she did at Dior.
Paola Cillo, affiliate professor of administration and expertise at Bocconi College, believes Chiuri “is a superb match and a very good experiment. The symbolic energy of her return, mixed along with her observe report of mixing mind, craft and cultural voice, make her a robust candidate to launch Fendi into its subsequent chapter. It’s an important story to inform. A household story of 5 sisters that goes again into the fingers of a brilliant and super-capable girl. Fendi is a matriarchal household affair and Maria Grazia Chiuri is the proper inheritor who will respect, protect and leverage on this distinctive story.”
After exiting Dior in Could, the Italian designer on Tuesday was appointed chief inventive officer of Fendi. This confirmed rampant hypothesis she was headed to the Rome-based home, which, like Dior, is managed by LVMH. It’s a return to Fendi for Chiuri, because the designer kicked off her profession there in 1989, serving to to spice up the model’s equipment supply.
“Maria Grazia Chiuri is among the biggest inventive abilities in style in the present day, and I’m delighted that she has chosen to return to Fendi to proceed expressing her creativity throughout the LVMH group, after sharing her daring imaginative and prescient of style,” mentioned Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief government officer of LVMH. “Surrounded by the Fendi groups and in a metropolis that’s pricey to her, I’m satisfied that Maria Grazia will contribute to the inventive renewal and future success of the maison, whereas perpetuating its distinctive heritage.”
February Debut
Chiuri’s first womenswear assortment for the autumn 2026 season might be proven in Milan in February, mentioned Fendi chairman and CEO Ramon Ros in an interview. This might be adopted by menswear in June and couture in July, pointing to a departure from the previous, as now “one single particular person will deliver consistency throughout the board and long-term solidity to the narrative.
“That is lovely information, we’re very joyful,” Ros added.
Requested if chief inventive officer was a brand new position for Fendi, he mentioned, “sure, and it’s one that enables her to totally specific her imaginative and prescient. This present second of uncertainty within the business will be overcome, and it may be a chance if creativity is seen as a motor to take action, however you want somebody who has the willpower, complete management of the metier, and a robust imaginative and prescient that can take away all of the white noise and deal with the merchandise, with out stopping at that however diving deep down, making a inventive legacy with the group.”
“I return to Fendi with honor and pleasure, having had the privilege of starting my profession below the steering of the home’s founders, the 5 sisters,” Chiuri mentioned in an announcement. “Fendi has at all times been a forge of abilities and a place to begin for a lot of creatives within the business, due to the extraordinary potential of those 5 ladies to foster and nurture generations of imaginative and prescient and ability. I’m grateful to Mr. Arnault for entrusting me with the duty of serving to to put in writing a brand new chapter within the historical past of this extraordinary women-founded firm.”
On the finish of September, Silvia Venturini Fendi was named honorary president, which confirmed hypothesis that, after the exit of Kim Jones from his position as inventive director of high fashion, ready-to-wear and fur collections for ladies in October final 12 months, extra modifications might be happening on the model.
Fendi and Chiuri “share the identical values of Italian artisanal craftsmanship, and she will be able to strengthen manufacturing additionally on the industrial degree,” mentioned Ros, highlighting a renewed deal with creating “distinctive and iconic merchandise that can give pleasure to clients and empower them for the long-term and never for one season or simply to be cool or modern and Maria Grazia is the correct particular person to do that.”
The truth that Chiuri has labored at Fendi earlier than and is aware of the model nicely helps to “share the historical past of the model and what it could change into. With Silvia being named honorary president, they may deliver extra visibility and a spotlight to the archive and what has been executed prior to now, which isn’t at all times so acknowledged or well-known outdoors,” Ros argued. “We’re working for the subsequent chapter, the subsequent 100 years filled with ardour and imaginative and prescient to deliver the model the place it deserves to be.”
Ramon Ros
Courtesy of LVMH
Whereas each a part of the LVMH group for years, Ros first met Chiuri throughout the summer season “after we had been finalizing the candidates, and I’ve at all times revered her as girl chief, for her consistency, willpower and metier, that are the foundations of a profitable maison. She is such knowledgeable and her self-discipline is wonderful. She is devoted and has put within the hours, it takes years to change into so expert. All this gels with our thought of distinctive and long-term merchandise.”
Requested about Chiuri’s principal abilities, Ros mentioned that she “has a really robust empathy with clients, she may be very clever and in a second she understands the context, what is occurring on the earth and what the world wants. That is essential, as a result of typically designers must be extra sociologists than designers.”
One Imaginative and prescient
Chiuri stepped down as inventive director of girls’s collections at Dior, succeeded by Jonathan Anderson, who additionally took on the accountability of menswear. This seems to be a brand new course for LVMH and one that’s seen as fashionable.
Giovanna Brambilla, accomplice at Milan-based government search agency Worth Search, mentioned that having two separate inventive administrators heading ladies’s and males’s “made sense till just a few years in the past,” providing completely different merchandise offered in diversified moments and instances “as a result of, in the long run, they spoke to completely different targets. Now we dwell in a contemporary society that’s way more fluid, and menswear and womenswear usually overlap when it comes to timing and likewise use: what appears to rely is the readability and uniqueness of the message {that a} model needs to transmit and on this sense a single inventive lead is enormously simpler and ensures nice consistency.”
Roberto D’Incau, managing accomplice, Lang&Companions Milan and Paris, mentioned Chiuri’s “arrival at Fendi seems like each a homecoming and a strategic assertion by LVMH. She started her profession there, and now returns with the maturity and authority gained at Dior. It’s additionally aligned with Arnault’s present imaginative and prescient: one inventive voice per maison, making certain coherence and storytelling energy. Her restricted expertise in menswear is unlikely to be a significant problem, as that section stays comparatively area of interest for Fendi. The precedence might be to unify the model’s inventive language throughout ladies’s, equipment and couture.”
D’Incau believes Chiuri’s “problem is to resume Fendi’s desirability with out betraying its soul. She brings a deeply humanistic strategy — emotional, feminist, but anchored in craftsmanship and cultural depth. This might harmonize fantastically with Fendi’s Roman heritage: sensual, architectural, artisanal. She might want to construct belief throughout the atelier and assert a transparent imaginative and prescient early on. If she succeeds in combining emotion and rigor, craftsmanship and modernity, Fendi might enter a brand new ‘mature’ section of class — assured, mental, and unmistakably Italian.”
Alessandro Maria Ferreri, founder, proprietor and CEO of consultancy The Model Gate, agreed on the concept there must be one single designer main creativity. Separating the collections below a couple of designer allowed “extra time to conceive new concepts: to design eight or 10 collections per 12 months will be draining for one particular person, who, even when helped and assisted, is predicted to make key choices. I feel LVMH is aware of very nicely the way to handle this monumental workload and the bodily and psychological stress it includes: that is the rationale why the group across the designer is more and more extra calibrated, scaled and arranged to permit for as a lot serenity as potential.”
Bocconi’s Cillo thinks Chiuri’s first transfer might be “to construct her personal inventive crew to provide voice to the venture she has in thoughts for her Fendi. Second act, it won’t be a product, however a tribute to Fendi’s sisters and particularly a reframing of the home via its ladies. She likely will quietly reconstruct the atelier tradition — haute furroure — however with a robust business sense. After which a relaunch of the Baguette, as an emotional bridge between the previous she helped create, and the long run that’s proper in her fingers.”
Chiuri “is aware of by coronary heart” the Fendi codes and she or he “has the sensitivity to reinterpret them with the lens of in the present day. Certainly, her abilities are a uncommon hybrid of workmanship, business intelligence, and cultural fluency,” concluded Cillo. “Additionally, she is aware of nicely the Roman tradition behind the model and this might be reborn via her creations. Her objective received’t be to shock, however to root herself — emotionally, traditionally and spiritually — in the home earlier than she revolutionizes it.”
Requested concerning the first potential steps Chiuri ought to take, Ferreri mentioned that Fendi “has an infinite potential that may nonetheless be expressed.” Silvia Venturini Fendi and her daughter Delfina Delettrez as a household “have valiantly and creatively defended the heritage of the model, a miracle that sadly not many different manufacturers have executed, however now Fendi has to take off, perhaps even infusing a dose of sexiness, leaving an indication additionally in segments resembling night cocktail put on, sneakers and the technical/nylon half that was beloved when the Fendissime line existed and that went a bit misplaced. Maria Grazia is a grasp in using technical materials for elegant fits, for instance, and it will give added verve to garments.”
Silvia Venturini Fendi
Brett Lloyd / Courtesy of Fendi
Ros mentioned Delfina Delettrez Fendi is staying on, in control of the jewellery collections for the model. “Fendi has lengthy been a hotbed of expertise, so many designers began working right here and have moved on to go main manufacturers, a testomony to the affect on the group and the business,” Ros mentioned. Along with Chiuri, examples embody Pierpaolo Piccioli, Alessandro Michele and Frida Giannini, amongst others.
Ferreri touted Chiuri’s “pragmatic” sense commercially, “which Fendi considerably wants particularly now.”
Whereas praising Venturini Fendi’s work with menswear, and admitting Chiuri has been much less concerned in that section, “Maria Grazia will shock us with a novel model and imaginative and prescient” for males, and can be capable to additional develop ready-to-wear in addition to couture, which has “not bloomed but,” he mentioned.
Ferreri additionally praised Chiuri’s arrival at Fendi. “It’s the proper selection,” returning dwelling to Rome, to the model and to LVMH. “She is conversant in the dynamics, the infinite prospects working with artisans, suppliers, laboratories and provide chain.”
Bernstein luxurious analyst Luca Solca mentioned he believes “this can be a good alternative to relaunch the Fendi model. Maria Grazia’s expertise can deliver new relevance to this maison, which misplaced a few of its luster prior to now few years.”
Brambilla mentioned that, simply when many iconic manufacturers “seem like painstakingly looking for to recuperate their DNA, who higher than Maria Grazia to deliver again to mild the distinctive message and authentic spirit of the model,” given her expertise at Fendi in the beginning of her profession. Brambilla is definite Chiuri will be capable to return these codes “in a contemporary and revolutionary method.”
Additionally, Brambilla touted the truth that Chiuri is “proud to be Roman and has returned dwelling to a model tightly linked with the Italian capital,” shortly after additionally restoring one other metropolis gem, the Teatro della Cometa.
Delfina Delettrez Fendi
Courtesy of Fendi
Venturini Fendi represents the third era of the Fendi household. From 1992 till 2019, she seconded Karl Lagerfeld within the inventive course and since 1994 she has been answerable for the equipment and menswear traces. In the course of the centenary of the home this 12 months, she was additionally tasked with the design of the ladies’s collections after Jones departed.
Venturini Fendi’s final assortment was proven in Milan final month for spring 2026, a colourful, artful and enjoyable ready-to-wear lineup that got here with new extremely embellished variations of among the most profitable equipment for the model, together with the Baguette and the Peekaboo.
Fendi has additionally seen modifications on the C-suite degree, with Ros becoming a member of as CEO on July 1. He was beforehand president and CEO of Louis Vuitton, mainland China, and succeeded Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou, who in April grew to become deputy CEO of Christian Dior Couture.
Chiuri departed after 9 years on the French model, the primary girl to steer the creation of girls’s collections, and writing a key chapter in its historical past, serving to to develop the model due to a mixture of commercially profitable product and feminist-driven storytelling.
Chiuri’s last assortment came about in Could, a mixture of cruise and high fashion appears to be like proven towards the spectacular backdrop of the Villa Albani Torlonia in her hometown of Rome, which a few of her common collaborators attended, together with artist Eva Jospin and photographers Brigitte Niedermair, Brigitte Lacombe and Maripol. Venturini Fendi additionally attended the present.
Forward of her final Dior present, Chiuri unveiled her private funding in Rome’s Teatro della Cometa, which she has been restoring for the previous 5 years.
Chiuri’s collections for Dior, constructed round robust model signatures such because the Bar jacket, pleated tulle skirts, goddess robes and hit equipment just like the E book Tote bag and the Slingback shoe, helped the corporate quadruple revenues from 2.2 billion euros in gross sales in 2017 to eight.7 billion euros in 2024, in keeping with HSBC estimates. LVMH doesn’t escape revenues by model.
She has staged blockbuster reveals in locations starting from Mumbai and Mexico Metropolis to Tokyo, Athens, Marrakech and Seoul, showcasing and emphasizing the creativity of native artists and artisans.
Chiuri joined Valentino Garavani and his accomplice Giancarlo Giammetti at Valentino in 1999. She developed a repute as a hitmaker, contributing to the vastly profitable Baguette bag at Fendi and the Rockstud pump at Valentino.
Chiuri left Valentino in 2016 after 17 years with the model and eight in her position as co-creative director with Piccioli. Chiuri and Piccioli first labored collectively at Fendi for 10 years. Garavani chosen the designers to spice up his model’s equipment class, which they did, rejuvenating that division. They had been promoted to inventive administrators of equipment at Valentino when Alessandra Facchinetti was assigned the identical title for ready-to-wear after Garavani retired in 2007. In 2008, they succeeded Facchinetti as inventive administrators of the model.
