After a fruitful five-year collaboration that yielded fashion fireworks galore and strong business momentum, Alaïa and its star designer Pieter Mulier are parting ways.
In a brief statement Friday shared first with WWD, Alaïa said Mulier would conclude his tenure as creative director after Alaïa’s summer-fall 2026 show during Paris Fashion Week in March.
His next move was not specified, but Mulier is widely expected to sign on at Versace in Milan, as WWD reported on Dec. 17. An announcement from Prada Group, which acquired the Italian fashion house last year, is expected as early as next week.
On Friday, Alaïa and parent company Compagnie Financière Richemont expressed gratitude to Mulier, while also highlighting the house’s strong fundamentals and a culture “that values creative exploration, transcending any one individual, and lives through the hands, eyes, and sensibilities of the maison’s teams.”
“We sincerely thank Pieter for his vision and commitment, writing an important chapter in the ongoing evolution of the maison,” said Myriam Serrano, chief executive officer of Alaïa. “Over the past five years, Pieter and the exceptional team he led have shaped Alaïa’s creative renewal, honoring its heritage and strengthening the maison’s relevance, confidence, and global recognition.”
Philippe Fortunato, CEO of Fashion & Accessories Maisons at Richemont, said the Paris-based fashion house is “guided by timelessness, independence, and exceptional craftsmanship.
“This next chapter will be guided by those values and by the strength of the collective talent that defines Alaïa.”
There was no mention of any successor, or any timeline given to name one.
“The studio will ensure continuity in the interim period until a creative organization is confirmed,” the statement said, also wishing Mulier “every success in his future endeavors; he will always remain part of the Alaïa family.”
A look from Alaïa’s winter-spring 2026 collection.
Courtesy of Alaïa
Typically dressed in a long-sleeve white T-shirt and jeans, the slender, affable designer joined the Paris house three years after the death of the founder Azzedine Alaïa, a Tunisian-born couturier almost universally praised for his exacting methods and dedication to hyper-feminine, figure-flattering silhouettes.
Mulier ultimately heated up the house to the boiling point with original, inventive designs, giving an experimental, modernist spin to Alaïa’s legacy of empowering, feminine and sculptural fashions.
In tandem, the house initiated a development plan that grew its retail network nearly fourfold to 20 freestanding stores. Meanwhile, its accessories business has flourished based on hit styles like its mesh ballerina flats, which Mulier introduced with his first Alaïa collection, the long-handled, east-west Teckel handbag, and newer styles like Le Click.
Serrano assumed the management helm of Alaïa in 2019 from sister house Chloé, where she was director of communication and accessories.
Richemont last year called out Alaïa as a “notable growth driver” among its fashion and leather goods houses, though sales in the division were flat against tough comparisons in the most recent fiscal quarter, and down 5 percent at reported rates.
The Swiss luxury group doesn’t break down business performance by brand, but it is understood Alaïa has more than doubled in size since Mulier arrived. Founded in 1964, the house has been controlled by Richemont since 2007.
Mulier echoed the founder by initially ignoring official fashion calendars and staging shows at offbeat times and various locations – including his penthouse apartment in Antwerp, Alaïa’s boutique on Rue de Marignan in Paris, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
Alaïa Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection at the Guggenheim Museum
Courtesy of Alaïa
Last year, the brand moved its runway show onto the official ready-to-wear schedule for Paris Fashion Week, and opened flagship stores in Paris and Beijing.
Mulier was named International Designer of the Year at the 2025 CFDA Awards, in recognition of his daring fashions – and experimental bent.
For Alaïa’s summer-fall 2024 collection, he challenged himself to use only a single merino yarn, coaxing an impressive amount of verve, sophistication and chic.
“Basically it was taking something extremely minimal and doing something maximal with it, which is very Alaïa. It’s all about sculpture, it’s all about the shape. It’s all about the garment, and not what goes on top of the garment,” he told WWD at the time.
And for the Guggenheim show, attended by the likes of Rihanna, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell, he created an entire collection without typical closures like buttons or zippers.
After studying design and architecture at the ESA Saint-Luc school in Brussels, Mulier started his fashion career working at Raf Simons’ menswear label in Antwerp, and expanded his design sphere into womenswear and accessories alongside Simons when the latter took the creative helm of Jil Sander, later following his Belgian peer to Dior and then Calvin Klein in New York.
Mulier came to prominence during his Dior days, stealing many scenes in “Dior and I,” a 2014 documentary by Frédéric Tcheng that charted Simons’ emotionally charged first two months as artistic director of the French couture house.
When Simons moved to New York to become chief creative officer of Calvin Klein, Mulier was named creative director and was responsible for executing Simons’ creative and design vision for men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, and the bridge and better apparel lines and accessories.
That impressive and varied resume, plus his background in architecture, won Mulier the plum post at Alaïa, where collections start with 3D shapes rather than flat sketches.
An iconic couturier of the modern era, Alaïa gained international fame in the 1980s because of the success of his evening dresses, snug knits and sculpted leathers, and was nicknamed “The King of Cling” because his clothes fit like a second skin.
Mulier is expected to fill a vacancy at Versace created when Dario Vitale, previously ready-to-wear design director at Miu Miu, exited the house last December, only a few months after his debut fashion show.
It is understood Versace has long been on Mulier’s radar, and WWD first identified him as a leading candidate on Dec. 4.
Asked by Interview magazine recently which designers other than Azzedine Alaïa influenced him, Mulier responded: “Versace, who was very linked to Azzedine back in the day.”
