Diesel welcomes Nicola Formichetti with arms wide open
Two days after announcing his departure from French fashion house Mugler, Nicola Formichetti is stepping into his next role – as creative director of Diesel.
"There's a new boy in town... Join with us in welcoming Nicola Formichetti to Diesel," it said in the update on the brand's Google+ page Thursday morning.
Two days after announcing his departure from French fashion house Mugler, Nicola Formichetti is stepping into his next role – as the first ever artistic director of Diesel.
The designer will be responsible for the "bigger things, different things" at the Italian brand, which includes product, communications and marketing, said Renzo Rosso, founder of Diesel and president of OTB (the parent company of brands like Viktor & Rolf and Maison Martin Margiela), to WWD, which first broke the news on Tuesday.
"We have the same way of thinking," Rosso told BoF editor Imran Amed. "He is always looking for something strange. Who can you find in the fashion industry that is as crazy me? Nicola."
Rosso says he first discovered Formichetti when he walked into a Mugler pop-up shop in New York City two years ago. The arrangement of the items and the overall presentation were "just unbelievable," he said.
57-year-old Rosso also discusses how Formichetti will be an essential component of Diesel's digital strategy. "It is the modern way to communicate," says Rosso. I follow [Nicola] on Twitter and Instagram, and the way he communicates is modern. It reminds me of how I was when I was young, just starting out at Diesel." Formichetti utilizes his tumblr, Twitter and other social media platforms as a means to communicate and share his creative vision with his many fans, who are simply fixated with the fashion figure.
Formichetti - a super stylist and the mastermind behind Lady Gaga's meat dress as the pop singer's go-to man since 2009 - also remarks on brands paying for a presence on fashion blogs: "This has got to stop. Editors and bloggers should be writing about things that excite them," he pleaded in his interview with WWD.
Well, certainly, someone with an indelible creative vision like Formichetti filling the post at one of our favorite denim brands, excites us. His affect on Diesel, however, will not be seen until next Fall. Watch his intro video, below.