The long-awaited return of Giambattista Valli, who regains his maison
Four months after the cancellation of the couture collection show, the designer announces that he has bought back the ownership of his company, founded in 2005, from Artémis, a fund of the Pinault family. Rare but possible cases
Giambattista Valli, the comeback: this could be the title of the summary of these last four months, the period between the news of the cancellation of the haute couture fashion show, last January, and that of the reacquisition of total control of his brand, announced today. A long-awaited, and finally realised, come true with the note from the Artémis fund, the Pinault family's investment fund (which also controls Kering), which had taken over increasing shares in Giambattista Valli since 2017, with the announcement of the agreement.
"I want to thank Artémis for having accompanied and supported me all these years," said Valli in the note. This agreement allows me today to fully regain the leadership of my brand and follow its development with enthusiasm and energy
"We were delighted to accompany Giambattista Valli and support his singular and demanding creative vision," commented François-Henri Pinault, president of Artémis. "After years of passionate collaboration, a new page is opening for this entrepreneurial adventure and I wish Giambattista Valli all the best on his journey.
Born in Rome in 1966, among the palaces of the Piazza Navona area and the fabrics of his family's shop, Valli studied first at the Ied in Rome, then at Central Saint Martins in London. A collaborator with Capucci, Fendi and Krizia, he then left Italia for Paris where he took over the creative leadership of the Ungaro maison. In 2005, the opening of his atelier, in a historic building on Rue Boissy d'Anglas, where his vision took on fashion also thanks to the manufacturing support first of Gilmar, the Gerani family company, and then of Mariella Burani. Having failed, in a complex way, the latter, Valli took control of his company, it was 2010. In the following years, he also collaborated with Moncler on the Gamme Rouge Collection and launched the second Giamba line.
It was in 2017 when the Artémis fund decided to invest in the maison, taking over an initial 30% share to rise to a majority in May 2025. In 2019 will come the capsule collection for H&M, presented with a fashion show-event at Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj in Rome, will arrive in 2020. In 2020 the first ceo, Charlotte Werner - who has also grown in the meantime in the appreciation of customers and the industry - will also arrive: in 2011, the year of his first couture collection presented in July in Paris, Valli was admitted to the Chambre Syndacale de la Haute Couture, an honour reserved for very few non-French creatives, to which he was joined by the title of Chevalier and then Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2025.
