MILAN — Another day, another changing of the guard at a fashion house. Today, it’s Missoni’s turn.
After two years in the role, designer Filippo Grazioli is out, to be replaced by Missoni veteran Alberto Caliri, “as part of a lifestyle-focused approach for the brand,” the company said.
Caliri was a longtime right hand to Angela Missoni who succeeded her as interim creative director in 2021 before shifting focus to Missoni’s home collection the following year.
The decision to put the house’s whole output under a sole creative director is likely a wise move, and Caliri has the talent to make it work. Not that Grazioli — a Martin Margiela alum who served under Martin himself, and later a member of the Riccardo Tisci team chez Givenchy — did not.
Grazioli pushed the Missoni language in many directions in a strenuous attempt to modernise the Italian knitwear specialist, but ultimately his vision failed to fully align with the codes of the brand.
His initial inclination for a sexier and cleaner Missoni was promising. Indeed, it was likely why he was hired by CEO Livio Proli in the first place. The layering Missoni is known for got cleaner and leaner. Later, his designs took a turn for the experimental, culminating in his Spring/Summer 2025 collection, which rendered Missoni’s iconic zigzags in three-dimensions, echoing both Issey Miyake and Maurizio Galante.
What proved fatal for the designer were his lack of taste for colour and dislike for pattern, which narrowed Missoni’s lexicon to its zig-zag and fiammato motifs, when there is so much more to the house. He also lacked experience with knits, which he treated like fabric.
But responsibility for the misalignment must ultimately come back to the CEO who hired him.
Grazioli’s tenure was a waste of talent. Caliri, meanwhile, has been at Missoni long enough to take the reins. What the brand needs now, more than anything, is an approach that is respectful of its rich and layered heritage. Its current incarnation is much too one-dimensional.
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