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Vanessa Friedman

ON THE RUNWAY

The Castiglioni family, the founding force behind the Italian brand Marni, is getting out of fashion.

On Friday, it was announced that Consuelo Castiglioni, Marni’s longtime creative director and the woman who built the brand from its roots as a family fur operation into a fashion force with a gallerist’s edge, was stepping down. Francesco Risso, a 33-year-old former Prada designer and a name unknown outside the industry, will take her place.

A company spokesman added that Ms. Castiglioni’s husband, Gianni Castiglioni, formerly the president of Marni, was also leaving the brand, as were the Castiglionis’ daughter, Carolina, who focused on communications, special projects and children’s wear, and their son, Giovanni, who worked in operations.

Rumors of an impending change had accessorized Consuelo Castiglioni’s last collection, though there was no sense of the scale (perhaps we should have known, given that the offering featured a travelogue of garments with capacious volumes and pockets). Ms. Castiglioni, a soft-spoken woman with an air of charming disarray who started Marni with her husband in 1994, attributed the decision to personal reasons

“These were hectic and exciting years which absorbed all of my energies to create a project I am proud of,” she said in a statement. “The time has now come to dedicate myself to my private life.”

However, the departures follow the family’s decision in 2012 to sell 60 percent of the company to Renzo Rosso’s holding company, Only the Brave, which also owns Maison Margiela, Diesel and Viktor & Rolf; Mr. Rosso purchased the outstanding shares last year to take complete control.

The change in leadership presumably signals a new direction for Marni, which has been beloved of a certain quirky, bohemian-intellectual slice of consumers. With 100 stores around the world and a turnover of 165 million euros, or about $181 million, it is too big to be considered a niche name but has yet to reach the giant leagues.

The decision to name Mr. Risso as Ms. Castiglioni’s successor is a notable one. The last time Mr. Rosso appointed a designer to the top of one of his brands, he took John Galliano, then in industry exile, to Maison Margiela, creating waves in fashion that really have yet to subside. At peer brands such as Christian Dior and Calvin Klein, the pendulum has swung back to the star designer, with each brand trumpeting the arrival of such hallowed names as Maria Grazia Chiuri, at Dior, and Raf Simons, at Calvin Klein, as heads of design.

Mr. Risso, by contrast, has a well-developed résumé (he studied at Polimoda in Italy, at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and at Central St. Martins in London, and he did stints at Alessandro Dell’Acqua and at Malo before joining Prada in 2008). He also has a very good reputation among the fashion cognoscenti in Milan, but he is not by any definition a star, or even a known quantity, outside the business.

At a time when the balance of power between designers and their corporate partners is in flux, this is a tilt in the corporate direction.

Mr. Risso’s first collection for Marni will be shown in February in Milan. Fashion will no doubt also be watching to discover what Ms. Castiglioni and her family do next.