Alessandro Michele, the former creative director of Gucci, has been appointed as the creative director of the couture house Valentino.

Michele stepped down from Gucci in November 2022 and the announcement ends much industry speculation about where he would go next.

The designer said of his new role at the Rome-based brand: “It’s an incredible honour. I feel the immense joy and the huge responsibility to join a maison de couture that has the word ‘beauty’ carved on a collective story made of distinctive elegance, refinement and extreme grace.”

Michele is to thank – or blame – for an era of kitsch, maximalism, gender fluidity, geek chic and unabashed kookiness. His Gucci aesthetic was the polar opposite of the quiet luxury that has prevailed in recent times. Harry Styles and Billie Eilish were fans of his designs at Gucci, which he joined in 2015.

Under Michele, Gucci’s revenues almost tripled. But his tenure wasn’t without controversy. Gucci was embroiled in a race row in 2019, after which a polo neck that critics said resembled blackface was pulled from sale. In the same year, a model staged a mental health protest during the brand’s Milan fashion week show. Wearing a high fashion take on a straitjacket, a model held up their hands, on which the words “mental health is not fashion” were written.

Michele will succeed Pierpaolo Piccioli, the much-loved industry figure, who stepped down from Valentino last week after more than two decades at the brand.

He will start his new job at Valentino’s HQ, near the Spanish Steps, next week. His debut collection for the house will reportedly be at Paris fashion week in September.

“Fashion is a magical thing, because the power of what we put on our bodies to go out in the world is what makes it mysterious,” he told the Guardian in 2022. “Without the life we live in them, clothes are just fabric.”