Valentino hires Giovanni Morelli to lead accessories design

By

Dominique Muret

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Oct 19, 2018

Valentino is stronger on the accessories front after hiring a high-calibre designer. Giovanni Morelli has been appointed design director of accessories, reporting to Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli, as a spokesperson for the Roman luxury label confirmed to FashionNetwork.com. Morelli has a 25-year-plus experience in the segment, and is well-versed both in footwear and in fashion accessories.
 

In the course of his career, he has worked for major labels like Loewe, Chloé, Burberry, Marc Jacobs, Céline and Prada. Until his dismissal last May, Morelli was the creative director of US footwear label Stuart Weitzman, which he joined in spring 2017, after spending two years at Loewe.
 
This is an important hiring for Valentino, as shown by the fact that it is the first time that the label owned by the Qatari private equity firm Mayhoola has issued a press release for an appointment to this post. Accessories account for half of Valentino’s revenue. After Valentino’s co-creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, left for Dior in July 2016, a sizeable part of the accessories’ creative team had relocated to Paris, leaving the label’s design studio quite depleted.

At the same time, Valentino Marketing Director Isabelle Harvie-Watt left the company, only six months after being appointed to the post.

After unveiling the spring/summer 2019 ready-to-wear collection in Paris at the beginning of the month, Valentino is now busy on another major event: the men's and women’s mixed show to be staged in Tokyo on November 27, for the presentation of the pre-autumn 2019 collection.

The show will be the occasion to spotlight the transformation of the Valentino boutique at the Japanese capital’s Ginza Six shopping mall into a concept store, notably featuring collaborations with artists. A new idea concocted by Pierpaolo Piccioli together with Sarah Andelman, the former creative director of Colette.