Maria Grazia Chiuri Returns to Fendi as Chief Creative Officer

Chiuri will present her first collection for Autumn/Winter 2026 during Milan Fashion Week next February.

Maria Grazia Chiuri has been named chief creative officer of Fendi, the house announced today. Chiuri will present her first collection for Autumn/Winter 2026 during Milan Fashion Week next February. The appointment comes six months after her departure from the creative director position at Dior. It also marks a sort of homecoming: Chiuri, who is Roman, worked at Fendi for 10 years as an accessories designer between 1989 and 1999, where she led the development of the house’s signature Baguette bag.

“Maria Grazia Chiuri is one of the greatest creative talents in fashion today, and I am delighted that she has chosen to return to Fendi to continue expressing her creativity within the LVMH group, after sharing her bold vision of fashion. Surrounded by the Fendi teams and in a city that is dear to her, I am convinced that Maria Grazia will contribute to the artistic renewal and future success of the maison, while perpetuating its unique heritage,” said Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH Group.

Fendi has been without a dedicated womenswear creative director since Kim Jones stepped down in October 2024. Silvia Venturini Fendi, house scion and granddaughter of the founders Adele and Edoardo Fendi, added womenswear duties to her established role overseeing menswear and held the fort for both genders during the brand’s 100th-anniversary seasons in 2025. On 29 September, however, Venturini Fendi was promoted out of her design duties and into a new ambassadorial role as honorary president.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Maria Grazia into the team. The role of a creative director is no longer to simply design beautiful clothes but to curate a culture and hold a mirror to the world we live in. Her talent and vision will be instrumental in fortifying Fendi’s heritage, shaping the future talent in the house and deepening our commitment to Italian craftsmanship,” added Fendi chairman and CEO Ramon Ros.

Ros, who stepped into his own role this past July, is looking to drive renewal at the house. Before Jones’s appointment in 2020, the house’s womenswear was designed by the late Karl Lagerfeld from 1965 until his death in 2019. Ros will be hoping that Chiuri, once Dior’s womenswear creative director alongside Jones in the same role for menswear, will bring new relevance to Fendi.

“I return to Fendi with honour and joy, having had the privilege of beginning my career under the guidance of the house’s founders, the five sisters. Fendi has always been a forge of talents and a starting point for many creatives in the industry, thanks to the extraordinary ability of these five women to foster and nurture generations of vision and skill. I am grateful to Mr Arnault for entrusting me with the task of helping to write a new chapter in the history of this extraordinary women-founded company,” said Chiuri.

Today’s appointment is also geographically convenient for Chiuri as Fendi is based in Rome. Following her departure from Dior in Paris, the designer has been fully based there too, working on passion projects including the restoration of Teatro Della Cometa, a historic performance space in the city.

When Chiuri left Fendi in 1999 with her then creative partner Pierpaolo Piccioli, it was for another Roman house: Valentino. When the house’s founder, Valentino Garavani, retired in 2008, Chiuri and Piccioli were installed as joint creative directors (after a brief cameo by Alessandra Facchinetti in the role). Chiuri stayed at Valentino for seven highly successful years before she was recruited by Dior in 2016 as a replacement for Raf Simons.

At Dior, she became the house’s first-ever female lead designer, overseeing womenswear. She changed the curation of the brand to convey an unapologetically feminocentric message, a tone established by her debut SS17 collection’s “We should all be feminists” T-shirts. She worked with female artists including Judy Chicago, Faith Ringgold, Eva Jospin and Mickalene Thomas. She also deployed all of her accessories expertise at the house and worked to expand Dior’s lens by working with craftspeople and creatives beyond its traditionally Francophone focus.

According to HSBC, Dior sales went from €2.2 billion in 2017 to €9.5 billion in 2023. Now she has the opportunity to dedicate the sum of her rich fashion experience to developing the house where it all began.

This article was originally published on Vogue.com.