Creative director of Gucci leaves fashion label

Alessandro Michele, the creative director who turned Gucci into a hit brand with younger generations, is leaving the Italian label.

Kering SA, which owns the brand, announced Michele is stepping down in a statement on Wednesday.

Gucci’s design office will oversee the label’s direction until a new creative organization is announced, the company said.

“There are times when paths part ways because of the different perspectives each one of us may have,” Michele said in the statement.

“Today an extraordinary journey ends for me, lasting more than 20 years, within a company to which I have tirelessly dedicated all my love and creative passion.”

Michele, 49, helped turn the Florence, Italy-based brand into a fashion behemoth since he took over creative leadership at the start of 2015.

Gucci is three times the size it was when CEO Marco Bizzarri “took a smart punt on the hitherto unknown name and placed him at the helm of Kering’s dominant brand,” Flavio Cereda, an analyst at Jefferies, wrote in a note.

“The next step is necessarily more complicated now, with questions on the successor.”