Kim Jones, the British designer, is to relinquish his function as inventive director of womenswear and couture at Fendi to “focus absolutely” on his place as inventive director of menswear at Dior.
In a press release launched late on Friday LVMH, dad or mum firm of each Dior and Fendi, stated: “Kim Jones has made important contributions to the model’s artistic legacy, seamlessly integrating his trendy and cross-cultural aesthetics with Fendi’s historic heritage,” the joint assertion stated. “Beneath his management, the maison reinvented its ready-to-wear and couture collections, providing an inclusive and progressive method to trend that continuously renewed Fendi’s Italian codes. All through his 4 years, Jones’ work was wholly guided by ardour and creativity.”
Jones had taken on the function at Fendi in 2020 taking on from the late Karl Lagerfeld, who held the place alongside his chief designer function at Chanel till his dying in 2020. Jones had joined Dior from one other LVMH home, Louis Vuitton, in 2018.
He’s thought of to be one of many pre-eminent design abilities globally in menswear mixing streetwear influences with tailoring and broad cultural references from his travels into his designs. His collections of womenswear at Fendi had, nonetheless, been met with a lukewarm important response and hypothesis has been mounting for weeks that he was about to surrender the function.
He introduced his final assortment for Fendi, mixing Twenties flapper influences with Nineties minimalism, at Milan Style Week final month.
Nineties minimalism met Twenties flapper in Fendi’s spring/summer season present.
LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault appeared eager to emphasize that Jones would stay in his function at Dior, amid widespread strikes on the prime of main trend homes in current months. “I want to thank him for his contribution and sit up for persevering with to witness his creativity for Dior Males’s,” Arnault stated.
It has been speculated that former Valentino artistic director Pierpaolo Piccioli could possibly be in line for the highest job at Italian home Fendi, having labored there within the Nineties. Piccioli teamed up with Maria Grazia Chiuri at each Fendi and Valentino earlier than Chiuri was chosen to move up womenswear for Dior in 2016.
Piccioli left Valentino earlier this yr to get replaced by former Gucci artistic lead Alessandro Michele. Chiuri’s place at Dior has been the main focus of hypothesis too with sources suggesting she might quickly be heading for the exit to get replaced by Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson who has labored wonders at one other LVMH home, Loewe.
Final week, LVMH confirmed that super-designer Hedi Slimane had left Celine, the place his designs had led to hovering gross sales. He was changed by Michael Rider, who had labored at Celine below its earlier chief designer Phoebe Philo. It was broadly anticipated that Slimane (a former inventive director for menswear at Dior) could be heading to Chanel the place the highest design job stays vacant. Nonetheless no information on that place has been forthcoming.
