After four years, Natacha Ramsay-Levi is departing Chloé. The French fashion house announced the news of her departure on Thursday. A replacement has not yet been named.
Ramsay-Levi was hired to lead the luxury label in 2017. Preceding her appointment, the Paris native worked as Nicolas Ghesquière’s right hand and protégée, first at Balenciaga and then at Louis Vuitton. While at Chloé, Ramsay-Levi created collections that revealed her personal mastery of French cool-girl chic, upholding the design tenets that have long made the brand an industry favorite.
“Natacha has made a great contribution to Chloé, bringing at its center the intelligence and sense of mission that were defined by our founder,” said Chloé CEO Riccardo Bellini in an official press statement. “She is an important member of that proud tradition of women who have designed at Chloé. Her creative leadership and her vision have written a powerful and meaningful chapter in our story.”
The first Frenchwoman to take the helm at Chloé since Martine Sitbon in 1987, Ramsay-Levi made it her mission to revive the founding values of Gaby Aghion. She also embraced a new kind of Chloé girl — one that was still an expensively clad free spirit, but one that had more of a cool edge.
“Over the last four years, I have had the great privilege, with the support of Chloé’s teams, to express my own creativity, while refocusing the Maison on Gaby Aghion’s commitment to intellectual freedom and to fundamental values that unite all of us,” the designer said in a release. “I want to thank Chloé for this opportunity. I am equally thankful for their support in my decision to leave my position. I do so with a sense of hope for the development of this great brand and its renewed commitment to a meaningful and powerful femininity. Over the last months of health, social and economic turmoil, I have thought about the changes I want to see in our industry and how to better align them with my own creative, intellectual and emotional values. It is this reflection that makes me consider my future differently and desire to pursue new opportunities.”
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