Francesco Risso

Francesco Risso is an Italian designer whose education moved through Polimoda in Florence, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and the MA Fashion programme at Central Saint Martins, where he graduated in 2007 under Louise Wilson. His early chronology includes a small independent boutique in Genoa and studio work for Anna Molinari, Alessandro Dell’Acqua and Malo, although the exact sequence of those short engagements remains unresolved.

In 2008 he joined Prada’s Milan design studio, working on womenswear, knitwear and special projects under design director Fabio Zambernardi and the creative authority of Miuccia Prada. Marni appointed him creative director on 21 October 2016. His first women’s work was Pre-Fall 2017, his first public runway was Fall/Winter 2017 menswear, and his tenure ended with the departure announcement of 18 June 2025 after the February presentation of Fall/Winter 2025 Vol. 2, The Pink Sun.

Risso subsequently divided his practice between corporate and independent work. Fast Retailing appointed him creative director of GU on 8 January 2026, while in April he founded the Milan-based Bureau of Imagination, a design practice whose first public project used reconstructed vintage garments for a custom Met Gala commission.

Risso approaches clothing through dismantling, recombination and physical trial. Knitwear is stretched, distressed or layered; tailoring is exaggerated or interrupted; archival garments and found materials are cut, painted and returned to use with their previous lives still visible. The resulting silhouettes favour emotional friction and bodily ease over a resolved, uniformly polished surface.

At Marni he extended design beyond the garment into casting, performance, music and collective image-making. Marnifesto dispersed a Spring/Summer 2021 presentation across more than forty live feeds, while later shows in New York, Tokyo and Paris used local musicians, artists and audiences to alter the meaning of the clothes without transferring design authorship away from the house studio.

His independent work after Marni continued the same interest in reuse and assemblage, while the GU appointment introduced a different problem of scale. Across both contexts, his method treats fashion as a social and material process: ideas are tested through conversation, handled textiles and collaboration, then translated into products that can move between spectacle and ordinary wear.