S1 E10

THURSDAY NEWSLETTER FROM ANDREA BATILLA

THE MEANING OF CHANGES

We saw them with our own eyes
And a silence settled in our hearts as they arrived
We saw them appear out of nowhere, in the night
From the nowhere of the sea
We saw them fall in silence
In an unreal flight
There were so many of them, and they drifted down slowly like snow over the sea
And it was driving rain, it was fire, it was hail and salt
It was summer, it was winter, it was an eternal moment
They were sons at the altar
We saw them, what sorrow, falling like lilies on the sea
We saw them broken, falling like lambs at the altar

The lyrics from Normandia, a little-known 1994 song by Fiorella Mannoia, written by Piero Fabrizio, describe American soldiers parachuting into France during World War II. But if you can get past the excess of sentimentality and imagine that the protagonists are not soldiers, but creative directors—launched defenseless into a battlefield they don’t understand—the metaphor becomes chillingly current.

Ever since the requirements to lead a brand, whether large or small, have become superhuman, the fashion world has changed. Since designers are now expected to also be experts in marketing, communication, commercial strategy, and retail and celebrities themselves, ready to be leveraged across every possible media platform, the role has become unsustainable. Not to mention those who have decided to change professions, those who have ended up in rehab, and those who have taken their own lives. To understand the level of confusion surrounding this role, just look at the frantic turnover of creative directors over the past year, a trend that will continue into 2025.

The brands that have recently changed creative directors, or will by the end of the year, include:

Tod’s - Versace - Valentino - Maison Margiela - Ferragamo - Marni - Fendi - Dior Men - Dior Women - Gucci - McQueen - Givenchy - Missoni - Jil Sander - Blumarine - Bally-Dries Van Noten - Rochas - Tom Ford - Chloé - Loewe - Chanel - Celine - Balenciaga.

This game of guessing names has become more popular than the soccer transfer market, more closely followed than the series Severance, and more erratic than the Nasdaq indexes. Everyone feels entitled to voice their opinions—simply because they can—without first stopping to reflect.

The creative or design process is a black beast, with dynamics that still seem mysterious to many. Where that spark comes from, that sudden jolt that brings a brand back to life, makes it cool overnight, and propels it to the top of every wish list, no one seems to know.

Fashion critics generally work in hindsight, trying to reconstruct a brand’s success, sometimes getting it right, often not. Financial analysts, living hundreds of miles away from design studios, tend to speak in vague terms about “strong personalities” or “clear identities,” without ever explaining exactly what characteristics they’re referring to.

A creative process is something that can be taken apart and rebuilt, much like a LEGO Lion Knight’s Castle. You can look inside it, flip it over, fuel it with new energy—or you can overturn it completely. You can even reset it and start everything from scratch.

The first mistake made when dissecting anything involving fantasy (which, not coincidentally, shares a root with the word phantom) is confusing the creator’s personality with the process they use.
Anyone who studies Caravaggio knows very well that to achieve the complex dramatic effect we all recognize in his paintings, Michelangelo Merisi used raw linen canvases covered with a hazelnut-colored gesso base before beginning his work. They also know he didn’t draw his figures first but painted them directly. And they know he started from the background figures, layering his subjects on top until reaching those in the foreground. While this is commonly referred to as a painting technique, in reality, it was an essential part of the creative process of one of the most astonishing artists in history.

But the fundamental trait behind Caravaggio’s creative engine was likely his borderline personality disorder and his sociopathic tendencies. He alternated between an irresistible fascination with the clergy, nobility, and upper classes, and a dark attraction to crime and the underworld.

These kinds of analyses are normal when studying an artist, but they’re almost never applied to fashion, which is still considered a realm of frivolity and superficiality. And yet, somehow, Gabrielle Chanel’s tragic childhood must have influenced her work. It’s very likely that the strict Catholicism in which Cristóbal Balenciaga was raised emerged in his equally austere creations. And it’s possible that Alexander McQueen’s undiagnosed depression not only led to his suicide but also helped infuse his creative vision with references to both physical and psychological darkness.

The choice of a creative director is often made based on considerations that steer clear of this minefield and almost never recognize either the potential risks or opportunities involved. This leads to difficulty in managing brands and to the excessive blaming of those at the core of the creative process.

Then there’s the fact that a designer’s personality gets grafted onto the personality of the brand. Every fashion house has its own history—sometimes short, sometimes very long—that builds an identity with all the complexity and darkness of a person. I’ve said many times that inside Gucci there’s a murder, that of Maurizio Gucci, and it’s impossible to ignore it. There are also the rivers of cocaine that Tom Ford, by his own admission, used to get through his work, and the painful rupture with Alessandro Michele. But there’s also Gucci’s incredible ability to pull itself out of its darkest places, to recover and return to the spotlight with an apparent lightness that’s typical of problematic but fascinating personalities.