Valentino Appoints New Designers; Facchinetti is Out!

Rumors have been flying for some time now, but it is now confirmed. After the Valentino Spring 2009 collection in Paris, the company’s CEO Stefano Sassi confirmed that this was the last collection of designer Alessandra Facchinetti for Valentino. The new creative directors for the Italian fashion house are Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, who have been designing accessories for Valentino for many years. Apparently Facchinetti wasn’t told of her dismissal and in fact she says the media heard of it first.

“It was with deep regret that I learnt from the press that I would no longer be working with Valentino… This news came as a great surprise since the company’s top management has not yet seen fit to inform me. I would like to thank Valentino s.p.a. for showing their appreciation of my ‘creative contribution and my sophisticated talent’ although I deeply regret the fact that this talent and contribution do not seem to have been adequately acknowledged,” Facchinetti writes in a public e-mail.

Ouch! But what went wrong? It seems that neither Valentino nor his his partner and president Giancarlo Giammetti liked her.

According to Valentino, “[Chiuri and Piccioli] always demonstrated an enormous respect and love for my work. There is an existing archive with thousands of dresses where they can draw and take inspiration from to create a Valentino product that is relevant today. It is a shame that their predecessor didn’t feel this need.”

Giammetti continues as he says, “To pretend to transform and revolutionise the Valentino style is a utopia which is a loss from the start … Pier Paolo and Maria Grazia are company oriented people and it is right to give them a chance to bring forward a style, which alongside Valentino, they have developed.”