In the ever-revolving game of designer musical chairs and their contracts with fashion houses, Peter Dundas is leaving Roberto Cavalli. In news that shocked the fashion industry earlier today, Dundas’ final collection for the iconic Italian fashion house was Spring 2017, shown only a few weeks ago at Milan Fashion Week. The Norwegian-born designer joined the brand in March 2015 and his first collection for Spring 2016 received appalling reviews on our forums. His next collection for Fall 2016 was a vast improvement, but Dundas took two giant steps backward with his most recent Spring 2017 showing. Nonetheless, the announcement came as a shock.
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Members of our forums were quick to voice their opinions once the news broke. “Yikes, what’s happening to this industry!! Purely from a superficial perspective, to me it looks like brands are as complicit as young designers. Where’s the loyalty where brands used to back their creative heads even through bad patches? Seems like this is a thing of the past now,” voiced Benn98 straight away.
“It was apparent that Peter wasn’t successful at Cavalli, he was much better at Pucci. The fashion industry is becoming more and more fickle, loyalty isn’t much around anymore. Money is driving this insanity, the big bosses wanting the gold pot at the end of the rainbow and it seems like it’s killing creativity unfortunately,” echoed Nymphaea.
“Well this one was a very justifiable exit. He was an absolute disaster, and I guess the sales numbers have been that bad to make them kick him out so quickly,” wrote Marc10.
Lola701 was unfazed by the news, exclaiming, “We can’t say that he did wonderful things at Cavalli. He should have kept the energy of his first show. It’s weird but I was thinking about how if [Anthony] Vaccarello is a fail at Saint Laurent? Dundas could take over. And here now, this news comes. I’m sorry but it was expected. Everybody wants their Hedi Slimane revolution. I don’t know how Pucci is doing but I believe their designer will leave. I think Cavalli should stop with all those diffusion lines.”
“It wasn’t honest and it wasn’t modern. It was Dundas pretending to be Cavalli. The first collection was an absolute disaster and the collections that followed were poor Cavalli copycats. He didn’t bring enough of himself to the brand,” declared GivenchyHomme.
“He should’ve never left Pucci. That was a good combination for both him and the brand. Now Pucci is a mess and he’s out of a job,” pointed out MyNameIs.
Are you at all surprised by the news? Join the debate here.
