Why Dario Vitale’s Versace exit is part of an alarming trend

By now we’ve all heard the news. Dario is out at Versace and Prada is in. The announcement of his departure came shortly after the Prada Group finalized the acquisition of the baroque brand. Dario, having previously spent 14 years at the Prada Group at Miu Miu, was the first to bite the dust.

Earlier this year in September, he showed his first (and last) collection for the label during the SS26 season. In all fairness, the collection did receive mixed reviews, some worse than others; and even in my own opinion, the Versace essence wasn’t quite captured. However, the critics remained quite hopeful, more so after seeing some couture creations on the likes of Olivia Dean and Addison Rae.

We can all speculate why he was let go, because let’s be real here, the word ‘exit’ is paraphrasing for having been let go; but I’m making a case for why this is becoming a dangerous industry trend.

The past two years have been enveloped in designer debuts. We had new Gucci and then now newer Gucci, new Valentino, new Balenciaga, new Dior, new Chanel, new Bottega, new Loewe, and I can go on and on. All these words like ‘new’ and ‘debut’ create a lot of buzz for these brands, and it seems to be this buzz that brands are starting to bank on. Amidst a global luxury market slowdown, new tricks must come from new hats. The share of media a debut show receives compared to a ‘regular’ show is decisively larger; it attracts the attention of the full press as well as large online audiences, and visibility is key. Look at Chanel, for example. Mathieu Blazy’s debut collection made waves throughout all media, but I would argue that if the same collection was shown under Virginie Viard, not as a debut or departure show, the social impact and attraction would be much less.

Your debut must be your best in this new landscape. If it is not met with praise, you have already diverted the eyeballs from looking at your second collection, thus trickling down into actual buying and sales numbers. So in the case of Dario, his fate was sealed as soon as the collection debuted.

However, what bothers me is that the role of creative director has also become the scapegoat. A collection is worked on for months before it appears; the in-house team does multiple reviews and comes to a decision as a brand that this is how they want to present Versace for the season. But once the ball starts rolling, they no longer stand together, and it’s each man for their own. Furthermore, the first collection from a designer without the Versace name was always going to be criticized.

The industry has already taken away the chance of starting an eponymous label. The hopes of becoming a successful creative director at a big-name brand are slightly fading now as well. The industry holds the cards and clearly only plays their favorites, while what we need is a few jokers.

I truly hope that the Prada Group gets it together (call Olivier, please) and pulls Versace back to a point of greatness. I’m also curious whether they’ll be able to tackle the brand's biggest challenge.

Wondering what that is? I’ve talked about it plenty on my Tiktok.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGdaTPMjn/