Pieter Mulier

Pieter Mulier joined Versace as chief creative officer in July 2026, after five years directing Alaïa. His first Versace collection is scheduled for February 2027. At Alaïa, he had worked with the founder's close-fitting silhouettes and exceptionally skilled atelier, making clothes whose shape came from the cut rather than added decoration. Versace gives that training a very different house to work in. (Prada Group; Dazed; Hypebeast)

For much of his career Mulier worked beside Raf Simons, following him through Jil Sander, Dior and Calvin Klein. He learned how a designer's ideas pass through fittings and ateliers before showing under his own direction at Alaïa. That practical knowledge is a stronger guide to his work than the often repeated contrast between his restraint and Versace's glamour. (Woolmark Prize; AnOther)

From an Ostend childhood to Raf Simons's studio

Mulier was born in 1978 in Ostend, the Belgian seaside town, and spent part of his childhood around his grandfather's shirt-manufacturing atelier, an early exposure to garment-making he has cited as formative. He trained not in fashion but in architecture, completing his studies at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels in 2001. He joined Raf Simons's namesake menswear label as an intern the following year and was quickly promoted to design director of the men's line, the beginning of an association that would carry him through three more houses before he ran one himself. (Woolmark Prize; AnOther)

Working alongside Raf Simons

When Simons became creative director of Jil Sander in 2005, Mulier went with him to lead accessories design, and when Simons moved again, to Dior in 2012, Mulier followed as design director for women's couture, ready-to-wear and accessories — the working link between Simons's ideas and the Paris ateliers that had to execute them. That role is documented in Frédéric Tcheng's 2014 film Dior and I, which follows Simons's first couture collection largely through the eyes of the studio staff around him, Mulier included. (Woolmark Prize; AnOther)

The pattern held once more in 2016, when Simons was named chief creative officer of Calvin Klein and brought Mulier to New York as creative director beneath him, responsible for the design teams across menswear, womenswear and the short-lived 205W39NYC runway line. The pair took their bow together after the acclaimed Autumn/Winter 2017 show, Simons's debut, though the results never satisfied parent company PVH Corp.'s sales expectations. When Simons and Calvin Klein parted ways in December 2018, Mulier left with him, closing out a run in which he had never yet presented a collection as the designer whose name was on the door. (Woolmark Prize; Reviewjournal/AP)

A quiet succession at Alaïa

Alaïa had gone without a named creative director since its founder's death in November 2017, its collections designed by an in-house studio rather than a single credited figure. Richemont, which owns the house, ended that arrangement on 5 February 2021 by appointing Mulier — the first person other than Azzedine Alaïa himself to hold the title. Chief executive Myriam Serrano cited his "remarkable technical talent and devotion to the craft, a sharp eye for construction and a sense of timeless beauty," and Mulier said he intended to carry forward Alaïa's "legacy of celebrating femininity and placing women at the heart of creation." His first collection, Spring/Summer 2022, was shown in July 2021 during Paris's couture week, the slot Alaïa has traditionally used for its ready-to-wear presentations. (V Magazine; Woolmark Prize)

Mulier's stated method at Alaïa was deliberately unspectacular. "We don't use themes or references to build collections," he said in 2022. "It's just about the clothes. What we do is simple — beautiful, well-made clothes." He described spending most of his working days beside the roughly thirty-five members of Alaïa's original atelier, building collections look by look rather than through mood boards or outside consultants, and was explicit that the house's identity had to keep tracking back to what its founder had established rather than his own signature. Over five years he expanded Alaïa's retail footprint to some twenty stores and drew public approval from people who had known the founder personally — Naomi Campbell wrote after his final show that "Pieter didn't try to replace Azzedine, he honored him. He understood that Alaïa was never about spectacle, it was about craft." (W Magazine; W Magazine)

Alaïa announced Mulier's departure on 30 January 2026, thanking him without giving a reason, and he showed his final collection — Fall/Winter 2026, staged at the former Cartier Foundation building in Paris — on 4 March 2026. Rather than a valedictory statement piece, the collection doubled down on restraint: body-conscious tailoring and minimal embellishment close to the founder's own "King of Cling" aesthetic, deliberately leaving room, as several reviewers noted, for whoever came next. Mulier's own note to the audience thanked the atelier rather than himself: "These are the people who build it. Bit by bit. They make the house alive… Never forget… One never works alone." No successor had been named as of September 2026, and Alaïa's collections are again being designed by its studio team in the interim. (Dazed; W Magazine)

Versace, after Donatella

Versace's creative leadership had already changed twice in the year before Mulier arrived. Donatella Versace stepped down as chief creative officer in March 2025, ending a run of nearly thirty years that began after her brother Gianni's murder in 1997, and moved into a chief brand ambassador role. Miu Miu's design and image director Dario Vitale succeeded her from 1 April 2025, showed a single collection — Spring/Summer 2026 — and left on 12 December 2025, ten days after Prada Group, which had just completed its acquisition of Versace from Capri Holdings, took full control of the house. (NPR; Yahoo Finance/WWD; Prada Group)

Prada Group and Versace announced Mulier's appointment as chief creative officer on 5 February 2026, effective 1 July, reporting to executive chairman Lorenzo Bertelli. Rather than push him toward an immediate runway debut, the companies said explicitly that he would spend his first months on "analysis and development of future collections" rooted in the house archive, with his first show not scheduled until February 2027, for Autumn/Winter 2027–28. The appointment sits inside a broader repositioning of the house under Prada Group ownership: the revival of the ultra-exclusive Atelier Versace couture line and the discontinuation of lower-tier labels such as Versace Jeans Couture, a shift toward full-price, more selective distribution. In the meantime, Versace has run without a credited designer — its Autumn/Winter 2026 campaign, released in July 2026, was built around archive imagery under image director Ferdinando Verderi rather than new design, a house one commentator described as "floating in the liminal space between two creative directors." (Prada Group; Hypebeast; Dazed)

Mulier has yet to show a Versace collection as of September 2026. His Alaïa work suggests close attention to the body and the construction of a garment; how he will handle Versace's prints and sensuality remains to be seen. (Prada Group)

Labels, dating and how to read the work

Alaïa's back-of-house history matters more than usual here, because the house went through three distinct creative regimes in under a decade with no change of logo to mark them. Anything dated to the founder's lifetime — up to November 2017 — is Azzedine Alaïa's own design. Collections shown between his death and February 2021 came from an uncredited in-house studio, not from any named individual, and resale listings that attribute this period to a designer are guessing. Mulier's own work runs from his debut, Spring/Summer 2022 (shown July 2021), through his final show, Fall/Winter 2026 (shown March 2026) — though pieces from that last collection continued arriving in stores for months after his departure, since retail delivery outlives a runway date. A tenure date alone cannot prove who designed a specific garment; the season printed on the label can.

Versace requires the opposite caution. Mulier's title started on 1 July 2026, but his first design work will not reach a runway until February 2027 and will not reach stores for some months after that. Anything sold under the Versace name between his start date and roughly the second half of 2027 was designed by Donatella Versace, by Dario Vitale for his sole Spring/Summer 2026 collection, or — for much of 2026 — by no credited individual at all, drawn instead from the archive. Here the tenure date does not undershoot the design record, as it does with a departing designer's unsold stock; it overshoots it, because a new creative director's first collection takes time to reach a shop floor. Checking the season code against this timeline, rather than assuming a July 2026 purchase date means a Mulier design, is the only reliable way to date a Versace piece from this period.

References

• Prada Group. "Pieter Mulier new Chief Creative Officer of Versace." 5 February 2026.
• Prada Group. "Prada Group completes the acquisition of Versace." 2 December 2025.
• V Magazine. "Alaïa Announces Pieter Mulier as New Creative Director." 5 February 2021.
• Woolmark Prize. "Pieter Mulier." Judges list, career biography.
• AnOther. "Why Pieter Mulier Is Perfect for Alaïa."
• W Magazine. "At Alaïa, Designer Pieter Mulier Puts Beauty First." 2 June 2022.
• W Magazine. "Pieter Mulier is Leaving Alaïa After Five Years as Creative Director." 30 January 2026.
• W Magazine. "With His Final Alaïa Show, Pieter Mulier Leaves the Future Wide Open." 5 March 2026.
• Dazed. "Pieter Mulier is leaving Alaïa." 30 January 2026.
• Dazed. "First look! Versace is laying low until Pieter Mulier takes over." July 2026.
• Hypebeast. "Pieter Mulier's Highly Anticipated Versace Debut Set for Early 2027." March 2026.
• NPR. "Donatella Versace to step down as brand's chief creative officer after nearly 30 years." 13 March 2025.
• Yahoo Finance / WWD. "Prada's Versace parts ways with Chief Creative Officer Dario Vitale." December 2025.
• Review-Journal / AP. "Calvin Klein's Raf Simons out after 2-year run." December 2018.