Italian fashion designer Davide Renne, Moschino’s newly appointed creative director, died Friday in Milan, the luxury fashion house said in a statement. He was 46.
The Tuscan-born fashion star started at Moschino on Nov. 1, but “a sudden illness took him from us too soon,” Massimo Ferretti, chairman of Aeffe SpA, Moschino’s parent company, said Friday.
“Even though he was only with us for a very short time, Davide was able to immediately make himself loved and respected,” Ferretti added. “Today we are left with the responsibility of carrying on what his imagination and creativity had only envisioned.”
Renne, who was hired to oversee the women’s and men’s collections, as well as accessories for the brand’s main line, took over for the American designer Jeremy Scott, who had stepped down from his position in March after nearly 10 years.
The much-awaited debut collection of Moschino’s fourth-ever creative designer, Fall/Winter 2024, was set to hit the runways at Milan Fashion Week in February.
“With Davide, we were working on an ambitious project, in an atmosphere of enthusiasm and optimism for the future,” Ferretti said.
Before taking the creative reins at Moschino, the celebrated fashion visionary spent two decades at Gucci, working under both Frida Giannini and Alessandro Michele, where he eventually became the head designer of womenswear.
Michele, who was responsible for all of Gucci’s collections from January 2015 until late last year, paid tribute to his late friend with a heartfelt message shared on social media.
“You weren’t just one of the most talented creatives I’ve ever known. You were above all an irreplaceable part of a little tight-knit family. Ours, the one we chose to build with all the love in the world,” he wrote.
Last month, when welcoming Renne into the Moschino family, Ferretti said the brand was impressed by the designer’s “extremely sophisticated vision of fashion’s power to create a living dialogue with the world around us, and by his deep understanding of the House of Moschino’s legacy and of our codes.”
He added, “We are confident that he will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of Moschino.”
Renne, a graduate of one of the most prestigious fashion institutes in the world, Florence’s Polimoda, thanked Ferretti “for giving me the keys to your playroom.”
“I can’t wait to begin,” he said on Oct. 16. “We’ll have fun together.”
