The game of musical chairs seemed to have stalled. Yet the year ended with a new jolt in the industry, marked by Dario Vitale’s departure from Versace. A few weeks later, it was Pieter Mulier’s turn to take his leave from Alaïa. The move drew even more attention as the Belgian designer has now officially joined the Milanese house, recently brought under the Prada Group’s umbrella. Meanwhile, Olivier Rousteing’s name is circulating as a possible successor on rue de Moussy, though no official confirmation supports the rumors. Who will take the reins at Alaïa? What will Mulier’s Versace look like? So many questions remain unanswered. One thing is certain, however: in barely four years, the designer managed to make Alaïa ultra-desirable again, successfully pulling off the perilous task of repositioning the house without losing an ounce of its heritage. Analysis.
A strategic appointment for the brand
Pieter Mulier joined Alaïa in 2021 as artistic director, four years after Azzedine Alaïa’s passing. A delicate context for a house founded in 1964, whose identity rests on an extremely precise, almost obsessive vision of the body. From the outset, the challenge was clear: to keep this heritage alive without freezing it in time, and to restore the brand’s cultural and commercial resonance on an international scale.
The house’s CEO, Myriam Serrano, then summed up the ambition of the project: to support “Alaïa’s creative renewal, while honoring its heritage and strengthening the house’s relevance, confidence and global recognition.” A bold wager, entrusted to a designer still relatively unknown to the wider public but well equipped for the mission.
A designer in Raf Simons’ wake
Graduating in design and architecture, Pieter Mulier built his reputation in the shadow of major houses. Having worked at Jil Sander, Dior and Calvin Klein, he belongs to a generation of designers shaped as much by conceptual rigour as by formal precision. A close collaborator and friend of Raf Simons, he shares with him an intellectual vision of fashion, notably nourished by architecture and contemporary art.
This closeness also explains the current speculation: as Versace has just been acquired by the Prada Group, the prospect of a reunion between Simons and Mulier is fueling conversations, reinforcing the idea of a strategic departure.
The female body as a field of experimentation
At Alaïa, Pieter Mulier established himself as a true sculptor. Faithful to the founder’s spirit, he placed the female body at the center of his thinking without ever seeking to constrain it. Architectural volumes, millimeter-precise cut-outs and plays on transparency: his silhouettes reveal as much as they envelop, evoking powerful women from another time.
The hood quickly became one of his signature elements, reinterpreted and integrated into dresses or coats as a natural extension of the silhouette. Far from nostalgia, Mulier offered a radically contemporary reading of Alaïa.
Pieter Mulier, the architect of the commercial revival
While critics widely praised his work, Pieter Mulier’s success can also be measured very concretely… in sales. Under his direction, Alaïa’s popularity surged, notably thanks to pieces that went viral. The Teckel bag, with its immediately recognizable elongated silhouette, established itself as a must-have. The mesh or rhinestone ballerinas, omnipresent on social media and on the feet of countless celebrities, quickly became best-sellers, copied and reinterpreted by numerous brands, from the most exclusive labels to fast-fashion retailers.
By succeeding in creating iconic products without weakening his creative vision, Mulier placed Alaïa in a rare dynamic: that of a house at once cutting-edge, desirable, and capable of turning its creations into genuine viral phenomena.
By reviving the house’s DNA without freezing it in the past, Pieter Mulier gave Azzedine Alaïa’s work a new resonance, legible to a generation that had sometimes only known it through the archives. A reactivated heritage rather than a reinterpreted one. Will he manage to do the same at Versace? To be continued.
