Sabato De Sarno Heads East
The former Gucci creative director joins Shanghai luxury house ICICLE
Sabato De Sarno is returning to fashion’s creative director circuit, but his next chapter will unfold far from the traditional centres of European luxury. The former Gucci creative director has been appointed Creative Director of ICICLE, the Shanghai-founded luxury label increasingly positioning itself on the international stage.
Announced on 7 September, the appointment places De Sarno across the full creative direction of ICICLE, encompassing women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, accessories and eyewear. His first collection will arrive for Autumn/Winter 2027–28. Bénédicte Laloux, a key figure within ICICLE’s Paris design operation since 2013, will remain Design Director of the Women’s Show Collection, now working under De Sarno’s creative direction.
For De Sarno, the move marks his first major fashion appointment since leaving Gucci in February 2025. His tenure at the Italian house had been relatively brief. Appointed in 2023 after more than a decade at Valentino, he inherited one of luxury’s most closely watched creative positions and introduced a considerably more pared-back Gucci, beginning with the now familiar Ancora red of his debut.
ICICLE presents a very different proposition.
Founded in Shanghai in 1997 by Ye Shouzeng and Shawna Tao, the label has built its identity around natural materials, longevity and an Eastern philosophy of harmony between humanity and nature. Its creative infrastructure already stretches between Shanghai and Paris, while its parent, ICCF Group, also owns French house Carven. ICICLE now operates more than 200 stores and has been steadily increasing its presence beyond China, including its arrival on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar.
There is another connection that makes De Sarno’s appointment particularly interesting. Kering, Gucci’s parent company during his tenure, took a minority investment in ICCF Group earlier this year through its House of Wonders investment platform. De Sarno is therefore entering an independent Chinese luxury business that has recently attracted the backing of one of Europe’s most powerful luxury groups.
The significance extends beyond one designer’s return. European fashion has spent decades treating China primarily as a consumer market for Western luxury. ICICLE’s ambitions point in the opposite direction: a Chinese-founded house developing its own international luxury language, expanding in Paris and recruiting established European creative talent to help carry it further.
De Sarno’s background could prove particularly suited to that task. Before Gucci, he spent more than a decade at Valentino, ultimately rising to Fashion Director across men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, following earlier experience at Prada and Dolce & Gabbana. His career has been grounded as much in product, fabrication and the mechanics of a wardrobe as in image-making.
That emphasis appears central to what attracted him to ICICLE. In announcing the appointment, De Sarno spoke of his fascination with the process behind a finished garment, from the origins of its raw materials to the craftsmanship involved in making it. For a company that has spent nearly three decades building its identity around materials and its relationship with nature, the alignment is easy to understand.
The real test will not arrive immediately. With De Sarno’s debut still more than a year away, ICICLE is allowing considerable distance between appointment and collection. When Autumn/Winter 2027–28 finally arrives, attention will inevitably fall on the clothes. But the larger question may be whether the partnership can help establish ICICLE as something the international fashion establishment has historically seen too few of: a Chinese luxury house operating globally on its own terms.
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