Is humanity out of fashion?

Ever since news broke last week that Pierpaolo Piccioli, the designer of Valentino, was leaving the brand, paeans to his talent have been flowing on both social and fashion media. But of all the words used to describe Piccioli's work - its "genius" and "magic" and "vision," its "dreaminess" and "beauty" - the one that most stands out to me is "humanity."

Not because of the looming threat of artificial intelligence, and whatever that means when it comes to clothes, but because Piccioli is not the only designer leaving fashion in the past six months whose "humanity" was part of their calling card. In fact, he's the third.

The first was Sarah Burton, the designer of Alexander McQueen. Burton departed that brand in October, 13 years after taking the reins as creative director following the death of its founder and more than 20 after joining as an assistant to McQueen.

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