Valentino sacks Alessandra Facchinetti in Paris showdown

The curtain fell on Paris Fashion Week in dramatic fashion, when Valentino's creative director Alessandra Facchinetti (pictured left, plus a design from the show) was sacked less than 24 hours after her show. Facchinetti's very public firing has led to a bout of recriminations from the designer and the label's founder, Valentino Garavani.

There had been rumours all week that the former Gucci designer would be stepping down after only two seasons. Just hours after the designer had taken her bow on the catwalk, the fashion house issued a short, sharp statement to the media announcing Facchinetti's departure following a "misaligned vision with the company".

The 36-year-old issued her own statement two hours later, telling of her shock and humiliation over the way she had learned of her sacking from journalists. "This news came as a great surprise since the company’s top management has not yet seen fit to inform me of the above. I would like to thank Valentino s.p.a. for showing their appreciation of my 'creative contribution and my sophisticated talent' although I deeply regret the fact that this talent and contribution do not seem to have been adequately acknowledged." (Continued below)

Valentino's longtime business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti - who in February praised Facchinetti’s work as “respectful”- soon weighed in: "To pretend to transform and revolutionise the Valentino style is a utopia which is a loss from the start."

Finally Valentino himself joined in, complaining that his legacy had not been respected: "There is an existing archive with thousands of dresses where [a designer] can draw and take inspiration from to create a Valentino product that is relevant today. It is a shame that [Facchinetti] didn't feel this need."

Facchinetti will be replaced by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, accessories designers at Valentino for the past decade. It is an uncanny repeat of Facchinetti's experience at Gucci, where she was sacked after two seasons and succeeded by Gucci's accessory designer.

One prominent fashion editor rose to Facchinetti’s defence. Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune said Facchinetti had respectfully modernised the label and that her latest collection was, given the circumstances, "heroic". Said Menkes: "Flat shoes with evening gowns in offbeat colours, but including Valentino red, increased the feeling of freshness. What the show lacked was runway pizzazz, which might be considered a positive rather than a negative in the difficult selling climate."