Tod's and Creative Director Matteo Tamburini Part Ways After Nearly Three Years, With No Successor Named

Tod's and Matteo Tamburini are parting ways. The Italian house said on Tuesday, November 10, that Tamburini is stepping down as creative director, a job he had held since 2023, and it hasn't named anyone to replace him. In its statement, carried by FashionUnited, Fashion Week Daily and La Conceria, Tod's frames the change as a new direction built around the brand's values, its recognisable codes, its craftsmanship and the Italian way of life it sells.

Diego Della Valle, chairman and chief executive of the Tod's Group, thanked Tamburini in the statement for his creative and professional contribution and for the work he did with the company's teams, and wished him well. Tamburini said: "My experience at Tod's has been an important chapter in my professional journey and an opportunity to bring my creative vision to the brand." He thanked the Della Valle family and the people he worked with, and said he leaves with respect for the work they did together.

Three years at Tod's

Tamburini joined Tod's after six years at Bottega Veneta, per Fashion Week Daily, which says he designed both the men's and women's collections, and he succeeded Walter Chiapponi, per FashionUnited. His first runway show for the house was the women's autumn/winter 2024 collection in Milan, FashionUnited says. La Conceria, the Italian leather-industry paper, dates his start to December 2023 and says his final collection was the one he showed in Milan in September.

His work is still what Tod's is selling this week. On Thursday, two days after the announcement, Tod's own Instagram posted two men out in its Pashmy suede jackets, one with a T Timeless bag, under its #TodsFW26 tag, from a season that went into stores while he was still creative director.

Tod's

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Tamburini is one more name in a year of designer changes, among them Pierpaolo Piccioli's exit from Balenciaga and Martine Rose's appointment there. La Conceria places Tod's move inside a wider reorganisation that began when the group delisted from the Italian stock exchange in mid-2024; the aim is for Tod's, Roger Vivier, Hogan and Fay each to run on its own with its own chief executive, which Della Valle has said should take about two years.

The statement's wording is the tell. The company's part of it talks about values, codes, craftsmanship and Italian lifestyle, the things Tod's built on the Gommino loafer, and not about a creative vision, which reads like a house putting its own codes ahead of a designer's name. What Tod's hasn't said matters as much: there is no successor, no end date for Tamburini and, as La Conceria notes, no word on whether a new creative director is planned at all. The next real test is who signs the collection Tod's shows in Milan in February, if it shows one.