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Versace has announced its creative director is leaving, less than nine months after taking on the role and two days after the deal to sell the brand to rival Italian fashion house Prada.
Dario Vitale exits after just one season, having taken the helm from Donatella Versace. Prada said it would announce a replacement “in due course”.
The company said it and Vitale “have mutually agreed to part ways effective from 12 December”, adding in a statement provided to Vogue Business: “We would like to sincerely thank Dario for his outstanding contribution to the development of the brand’s creative strategy during this transition period, and we wish him all the very best in his future endeavors.”
Vitale is yet to respond – his last Instagram post, from Wednesday, is a Versace ad campaign.
The decision comes shortly after Prada completed its $1.4bn (£1bn) purchase of Versace from the US fashion group Capri Holdings, whose other brands include Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo.
The Business of Fashion website argued that Vitale, a hire under Capri’s tenure, was not felt to be a good fit to lead Versace by its new owners. Prada’s chief executive, Andrea Guerra, had avoided questions about him on investor calls.
“Prada’s leadership seemed unconvinced that he could jump from a behind-the-scenes role to a highly visible creative directorship, or that his taste was a match,” Business of Fashion reported.
The designer and Prada have a history: Vitale left the group’s hit brand Miu Miu this year to take the helm at Versace in March, a switch Business of Fashion described as “an unwelcome hiccup”.
Miu Miu is a rare success story in designer fashion. This year it overtook Loewe to become the hottest fashion brand in the world, according to the Lyst Index. In October the Prada group reported a 9% uplift in sales for the first nine months of year, driven by a 41% rise in sales at the cult brand.
During the same period, the Prada label reported a 1.6% decline in sales. In the last three months of 2024, meanwhile, Versace reported a 15% drop in year-on-year sales, to $193m.
Vitale’s show for spring/summer 2026 became a talking point in fashion – some appreciated the 80s-style shapes and club-worthy silhouettes, while others found the collection chaotic. The influential Instagram account @boringnotcom reacted to the news with a post reading “I told you so”, after it had predicted in July that Vitale would go.
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While the hunt is on for a new design chief, Versace’s creative team will report to its chief executive, Emmanuel Gintzburger.
There are various top-level designers who are free agents. Olivier Rousteing, who left Balmain after 14 years in October, has the glamorous aesthetic Versace is known for. Kim Jones, who departed from Fendi and Dior in October and January respectively, could also be a good fit. He worked on a collaboration between Versace and Fendi, known as Fendace, in 2022.
Donatella Versace stepped down as the brand’s creative chief in March after 27 years at the company – she had taken over after the high-profile murder of her brother in 1997 – and into a chief brand ambassador role. Vitale became the first creative director outside the Versace family. Donatella did not attend his show.
For Prada, its purchase of Versace is seen as an attempt to become a luxury fashion powerhouse to rival the existing French luxury conglomerates: LVMH, which owns a bevy of luxury fashion brands including Celine, Fendi, Givenchy and Louis Vuitton; and Kering, which owns names such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga.
