Alessandro Vigilante crowned Creative Director at Rochas
Amidst a flurry of new luxury fashion appointments, Rochas has announced that the Italian designer Alessandro Vigilante is to take the helm at the womenswear label as Creative Director of ready-to-wear.
He is the sixth Creative Director to step into the role at the luxury brand following the Founder's exit. Rochas was founded by Marcel Rochas in 1925 and was later acquired by Interparfum, a French licensed fragrances specialist, in 2015.
Vigilante’s first collection for the label will be Fall/Winter 2024, which will be presented during next February’s Paris Fashion Week, while Rochas is set for a come-back runway show in September 2024.
Vigilante is a graduate of Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) Moda Lab, later gaining over 20 years of experience in the luxury fashion industry. He first scored the Senior Womenswear Designer position at Dolce&Gabbana before moving on to similar roles at Gucci and Aeffe. In 2020, the designer established his eponymous label with the motto “Decorate your body with movements”.
On his appointment, the designer said: "Rochas represents a dedication to French sophistication and a celebration of Womanhood that I find incredibly inspiring."
In an interview with Vogue, he added: “It’s exciting when something unexpected happens. For 16 years, I translated the vision of other creative directors; now I really need to speak in my own voice.
“As a dancer, everything is about the body and movement. It’s not just making fashion that has to be ‘wow’, it’s about doing clothes that make you feel stronger, powerful and self-confident because you feel really, really good in them.”
“I imagine the new Rochas woman as someone who doesn’t follow trends, she has her own personality and I love the way she wears her clothes.”
Rochas’ former Creative Director, Charles de Vilmorin, stepped down in April 2023, just two years after his appointment. With Vigilante at the helm, Rochas is seemingly looking to drastically switch up the brand’s direction while remaining close to archival codes. The brand said that the designer was set to bring "modernity to the charismatic, sophisticated, and timeless beauty that has long been part of the brand DNA".
