The owner of Versace, Prada, announced on Thursday that Pieter Mulier will take over as chief creative officer. This will put the Belgian designer in the same building as longstanding partner Raf Simons.
Mulier, 46, who worked at Alaia for five years, takes over for Dario Vitale, who succeeded Donatella Versace at Versace for just nine months before abruptly leaving in December.
Simons, a fellow Belgian who has been co-designing at Prada with Miuccia Prada since 2020, will rejoin with Mulier when he starts his new position on July 1.
In an attempt to revitalize a brand that had suffered under its US owner, Prada paid 1.25 billion euros ($1.47 billion) to acquire the Versace brand from Capri Holdings last year.
Mulier was creative director at Calvin Klein after spending a significant portion of his design career working alongside Simons at Christian Dior and Jil Sander.
Versace CEO Lorenzo Bertelli said in a statement, “We think he can really unlock Versace’s full potential and that he will be able to engage in a fruitful dialogue with the brand’s strong legacy.”
After Azzedine Alaia, the label’s founder, passed away in 2021, Mulier joined Alaia as its first creative director. Alaia’s body-molding creations, which were frequently made of tight strips of knitted cloth, peaked in the 1990s.
The Ostend native used his architectural training to create sculptures at Alaia that experimented with volume and proportion, winning him the coveted CFDA Awards’ International Designer of the Year title last year.
A low and long “Le Teckel” (Dachshund) purse and a Mary Jane ballet flat with studs proved to be must-haves for many, helping to return the brand and its creator to the forefront of the fashion industry.
In March, at Paris Fashion Week, Mulier will showcase his last collection for Alaia.
