Moschino has named Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo, the founding duo behind the Milan-based label Sunnei, as its new co-creative directors. The appointment, effective immediately, brings to a close a period of speculation that began when Adrian Appiolaza departed the house after a brief tenure.
Messina and Rizzo built Sunnei over the past decade into one of Milan’s most distinctive independent labels. Their work is defined by a graphic, color-saturated vocabulary that treats silhouette as a playground — oversized volumes, exaggerated proportions, and a distinctly irreverent attitude that never tips into parody. That sensibility could translate naturally onto Moschino’s canvas, a house whose DNA has always mixed tailoring with theatricality.
The appointment raises a broader question about how heritage Italian houses recalibrate for a younger consumer. Moschino, which has long punched above its weight in cultural visibility, now has a design team that speaks the visual language of the Instagram-and-runway generation. The bet is that Messina and Rizzo can do for Moschino what they did for Sunnei — build a coherent, covetable world — but on a global stage.
The duo will present their debut collection for Moschino during Milan Fashion Week in September. The timeline gives them roughly three months to translate Sunnei’s design language into a house that operates at a significantly larger scale and price tier.
The decision to install an external duo rather than promote from within signals a strategic recalibration for the Aeffe-owned brand. Since the death of Franco Moschino in 1994, the house has cycled through several creative identities, from Rossella Jardini’s archival reverence to Jeremy Scott’s pop-culture maximalism and Appiolaza’s abbreviated runway experiment.
