Dario Vitale named creative director of Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani Accessories

Dario Vitale has been named creative director of Emporio Armani, taking on Giorgio Armani Accessories as well, the Armani Group confirmed on September 16. It is the first time anyone from outside the Armani family has held either post. The role begins with immediate effect, though the house has not said when Vitale will show his first collection.

The move ends months of speculation over where Vitale would land after his exit from Versace, where he lasted a single season.

That collection, shown for Spring/Summer 2026, reworked the house around the sex appeal of Gianni Versace's early years and drew praise as a genuinely new reading of the label, which remains, as we have covered it, Italian maximalism built on a Medusa head and a house that has always read a red carpet better than a boardroom.

Before Versace, Vitale spent fifteen years at Miu Miu, rising to design director, and started his career at Bottega Veneta under Tomas Maier before a stint at DSquared2. He was born close to Naples. The Armani Group's statement described his arrival as the start of a new chapter, citing his sensitivity to product, quality, consistency and contemporaneity.

Silvana Armani, the late founder's niece and head of womenswear design, and Leo Dell'Orco, head of menswear design for the Armani Group, said Vitale would interpret Emporio Armani's spirit of freedom, experimentation and energy with respect and authority. Both remain in their design posts, meaning Vitale's dual role is alongside, rather than replaces, the family's existing creative leadership.

Vitale called the appointment an honour and said he was grateful to Silvana and Leo for welcoming him into their world. Armani, he said, carries a powerful legacy and an unmistakable design language, a heritage spanning decades that has shaped the history of fashion. He added that he approaches the role with a deep sense of responsibility and excitement.

Why this hire breaks with Armani's history

Giorgio Armani, who died last September, built his name on stripping the structure out of the tailored jacket in 1975 and ran one of the last great independents in Italian luxury without ever handing creative control outside his own family.

Every creative decision at Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani Accessories had stayed inside that circle until now, which is what makes Vitale's appointment a genuine break rather than a routine reshuffle.

That history is also why the appointment carries more weight than a typical creative-director move at a rival house. Armani built its accessories and diffusion lines, Emporio Armani chief among them, as the commercial engine beneath the couture-level Giorgio Armani name, and putting one outsider across both signals a shift in how the group intends to run its product pipeline.

What Vitale inherits at Emporio Armani

Emporio Armani has long functioned as the younger, more experimental register of the Armani name, the line meant to carry freedom and energy rather than the founder's austere tailoring codes. Giorgio Armani Accessories, the second brief Vitale now holds, covers the leather goods, bags and small products that generate steady volume for the group regardless of runway cycles.

We have tracked Armani's product output in our own coverage, including in our gift guide for men, which sorts luxury picks into four price bands and lists Armani's Acqua di Gio among its under $100 entries alongside a Bellroy wallet and a LARQ bottle.

That guide is a reminder of how far the Armani name already reaches across price points before a single Vitale-designed piece ships.

Vitale's Versace collection was reviewed as a disruptive force that stripped back old conceptions of the house and ushered in an energetic new vision, language that mirrors the freedom and experimentation Silvana Armani and Leo Dell'Orco now want him to bring to Emporio Armani. The overlap in the two briefs is not incidental; it is the reason the group pursued him.

What happens next

The Armani Group has confirmed the role starts immediately, but it has given no date for Vitale's runway debut at either Emporio Armani or Giorgio Armani Accessories, leaving the timing of his first collection as the next concrete marker to watch.

For a house built on family control, the decision to bring in an outsider at this level is itself a piece of business strategy as much as a design choice, and one worth following in our broader coverage of the business of luxury fashion.

How Vitale balances two design chairs, at a company still adjusting to life after its founder, will be the real test of the appointment.