GU unveils its first full collection under new creative director Francesco Risso

GU unveiled its first full collection designed under Francesco Risso, the Italian designer who joined as creative director after a decade at Prada and nine years leading Marni, according to Fast Retailing. The range launches in late July and marks GU's 20th year.

According to the company, the collection remakes GU's line-up around six concepts — Minimal, Classic, Playful, Utility, Sport and Cozy — taking its name from the Japanese word jiyu, meaning freedom, rather than around a single seasonal theme. Prices on the featured pieces run from ¥1,290 to ¥5,990. "Everyday dressing can be both practical and expressive, familiar and surprising," Risso said in a company statement.

Fast Retailing chief executive Tadashi Yanai described GU as central to the group's next phase of growth, and GU president Tomokazu Kurose said shoppers would be surprised by the pricing, according to the company.

Hiring a designer who spent nine years shaping one of Milan's most idiosyncratic labels to redesign a chain built on sub-¥6,000 pricing is a different bet from GU's usual playbook of one-off designer capsules — this is a full-line creative-director appointment, closer to how a fashion house resets its whole collection than how a fast-fashion brand runs a collaboration. It works only if Risso's sensibility survives being spread across six concepts and translated into GU's price points without becoming generic; timing it to the 20th-anniversary moment, and Kurose's own framing around price, suggests the company knows that tension is exactly what shoppers will be watching for.