Givenchy Names New Designer

Riccardo Tisci, a relatively unknown Italian fashion designer, has been named creative director for women’s wear at Givenchy, the fabled French fashion house and division of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (Paris).

The surprise announcement comes after a search of nearly a year following the resignation, in April 2004, of Julien Macdonald, who left after criticism of his collections and clashes with LVMH management.

The appointment of Tisci was called surprising because he does not have the name recognition of other LVMH designers like John Galliano, the designer of Christian Dior, or Marc Jacobs, who designs Vuitton. But LVMH said it had been looking at a number of lesser-known designers in recent months. Many of them, including Sophia Kokosalaki, Roland Mouret and Giles Deacon, as well as Tisci, were trained or are based in London, where the three most-recent designers of Givenchy also built their businesses.

Tisci, 30, has shown his own collections in Italy. He has also been a consultant for several Italian labels. He will give up his own line to design haute couture and ready-to-wear collections for Givenchy, beginning with its fall couture collection. LVMH’s expectation that whoever would design for the company would do so exclusively was a sticking point in its negotiations with several designers over the last year because many of them did not want to close their own businesses.