Daniel Fletcher to Exit Fiorucci
LONDON — Daniel Fletcher is leaving Fiorucci as menswear artistic director at the end of June, WWD has learned.
“I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished together during my time here and have had so much fun along the way. It has been an honor to contribute to this brand that has such a rich history, and I wish Fiorucci all the best for the future,” Fletcher said in a statement sent to WWD.
More from WWD
EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Fletcher Named Royal Ascot's Creative Director for 2024 Season
Fiorucci's Big 2024: Physical Rollout, Runway Show and a New Home
Three Debuts in Presentations at Milan Fashion Week Spring 2024
He added that announcements regarding his future plans, as well as updates from Fiorucci, will be made in due course. It is understood that the split was amicable and that Fletcher is leaving to focus on his own brand.
Fletcher’s most recent collection for Fiorucci, pre-fall 2023, was presented last month and took the brand in a new, and more upmarket direction. Resort 2024 will be his last collection for the brand.
A Central Saint Martins alum, Fletcher first caught the industry’s attention in 2016 at the debut of his namesake label. He staged an anti-Brexit protest in place of a traditional runway show.
He reached a wider audience after becoming a runner-up in the Netflix reality show “Next in Fashion,” and was appointed menswear artistic director of Fiorucci a month before the show aired in January 2020.
Under Fletcher, Fiorucci expanded its categories beyond T-shirts, sweatshirts, denim and angel-themed pieces, and moved into ready-to-wear.
In the meantime, Fletcher continued to present collections for his namesake label Daniel W. Fletcher in London.
Last Friday, he unveiled a collaboration with Huntsman as part of the fall 2023 collection at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The partnership with the 174-year-old Savile Row tailor signaled a higher-end positioning for the brand, Fletcher said.
In addition to Fletcher’s own rtw designs, there were nine collaborative pieces that Fletcher developed alongside Huntsman creative director Campbell Carey. They were made by Huntsman tailors and came with sharper shoulders and narrow, elongated waistlines.
The styles were immediately available for fittings at Huntsman, with prices starting from 6,300 pounds.
A more ready-to-wear-focused 12-piece capsule, inspired by the archives of both brands, will be available across Fletcher’s own distribution network in the fall together with the arrival of the designer’s main line. It features oversize shirts, wide-leg trousers and A-line jackets.
“My brand is all about reimagining British heritage, so this partnership with Huntsman made total sense. Taking what we know as traditional menswear and offering a contemporary take on it, one that is not bound by rules of dressing, gender or the expected,” Fletcher said in an earlier interview with WWD.
Founded by Elio Fiorucci 56 years ago, the Italian fashion label was considered the mother of all retail concepts with its first store in Milan’s central San Babila opened in 1967. It dismantled the established ideas and structure of a fashion retailer to fill it with design, art, music, books, kinky merchandise and even food, at a time when terrorism and political tensions loomed over Italy.
After a rapid and successful global expansion in the following decades, opening doors across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, the brand went into financial trouble and saw its ownership change hands several times.
In 2015, after the brand’s founder died, Fiorucci was sold by the Japanese trading house Itochu to the veteran British clothing retailers Stephen and Janie Schaffer.
The duo relaunched Fiorucci in 2017 and now operates one store in London.
— With contributions from Hikmat Mohammed
Best of WWD
