Nicolas Di Felice, A Protégé Of Nicolas Ghesquière, Has Been Named Artistic Director Of Courrèges

News out of Paris today: Courregès has found a new artistic director – Nicolas Di Felice. The Courrèges appointment is Di Felice’s first director role. A Belgian who graduated from La Cambre in Brussels, Di Felice has worked at Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton under Nicolas Ghesquière and at Christian Dior with his countryman Raf Simons.

“I’ve always dreamed of Courrèges, with its radical and enveloping universe,” Di Felice said in a statement. “It is a house which means a lot to me and in which I see myself. Its simplicity, clarity, not to mention its optimism – I am honoured to keep these values alive, and I hope to do so with as much passion and enthusiasm as the house’s founder.”

Di Felice’s appointment seems written in the stars. André Courrèges, the house’s enigmatic founder, started his career at Balenciaga under Cristobal in the 1950s before taking his own brand of Space Age futurism global in the ’60s . When the house was revived successfully circa 2015, it was yet another Balenciaga alum, Sebastien Meyer, at the control panel. Not only that: Di Felice’s instalment chez Courrèges expands Ghesquière’s Paris diaspora. Paco Rabanne’s Julien Dossena and Chloé’s Natacha Ramsay-Levi come from the school of Nicolas, too. The trio are frequent front-row guests at each other’s shows, and a scroll through Di Felice’s personal Instagram suggests that they all could turn up at his Courrèges debut next March.

The house’s official Instagram account was recently scrubbed, and overnight a symbolic set of keys and new photographs of iconic Courrèges pieces were posted, among them a spring 1965 black-and-white striped double-breasted jacket and a fall 1969 prototype organza cut-out dress with vinyl details. Before the end of the year, Di Felice will revive a selection of these pieces for sale at the brand’s rue François 1er store in Paris.