Giles Deacon at Ungaro, Officially!

by Filipa Oliveira

Giles Deacon

Following earlier rumors that pointed for a possible collaboration, French luxury house Emanuel Ungaro has finally confirmed British designer Giles Deacon as its new creative director. Struggling to keep the spot atop the fashion industry since the retirement of its founder designer in 2004, Deacon becomes the brand’s latest attempt to recapture a sparkle that have been lost amongst a series of short-lived creative teams and inexperienced artistic advisors (read Lindsay Lohan).

“Various things have happened at the house recently which for legal reasons the company can’t comment on – but I like to think of the bigger picture”, Giles has said. “The house and its legacy have a lot more to them than that.”

Despite uncertain future, the designer is confident that the label will be able to pull through all the hard times.“I’m 40-years-old and I have pretty good experience in the industry – I don’t pretend to have all the answers but I hope some of my experience will help – we’re also bringing a really good, experienced team on board”, he said, referring to the stylist and magazine editor Katie Grand, which is joining Deacon at Ungaro’s creative team.

Giles will continue to collaborate with New Look on the long-running Gold label, as well as working in his successful eponymous line. “It’s an exciting relationship both because there are similarities between the Giles and the Ungaro women, but there are distinct differences too; Ungaro woman is super sexy, very French, sophisticated, slightly cheeky and playful woman” he says. “All the things we think of when we think of Parisian women. With Ungaro we’ll be working with lace, a whole different colour palette, differing prints, interesting cuts – it’s difficult to describe the differences from my own line verbally but they’ll be obviously different aesthetics when you see the collections.”

The first Ungaro collection by Deacon will be presented at the Paris Fashion Week in October. Go Deacon! Go Ungaro!