Before his recruitment to Moschino, Renne was a pivotal member of the design team at Gucci. He joined the Kering-owned house in 2004, working under both Frida Giannini and Alessandro Michele. He rose to the position of Head of Womenswear Design, and had overseen the Fall 2023 collection presented this February between the tenures of Michele and Sabato De Sarno.
In the personal statement that accompanied his appointment to Moschino’s Creative Director position, Renne had described his professional progress, noting: “Fashion, like life, is about discovering ourselves.” He was born and raised in the seaside town of Follonica, Tuscany. “I realized in high school while studying at Liceo Scientifico that for some mysterious reason I kept drawing women’s clothes,” he wrote. Renne studied his vocation at the Polimoda fashion school in Florence, an educational experience which he said: “endowed me with a sense of absolute freedom, paving the way for a journey of creativity that, I soon discovered, became my life.”
After graduation he moved to Milan, where he worked for four years in the studio of Alessandro Dell’Acqua, who he described as “my first teacher and mentor in fashion.”
In 2003 Renne briefly worked at Ruffo Research, a label whose other alumni include Nicolas Ghesquière, Sophia Kokosalaki, and Riccardo Tisci, before his recruitment to Gucci. He wrote: “There, I spent the past eight years with Alessandro Michele who taught me to dream bigger and pushed me further ahead, and helped me to make my dreams come true.”
Davide Renne, fashion designer, born July 7 1977; died November 10 2023.