Formafantasma Named Creative Director of Santa Maria Novella

The Milan- and Rotterdam-based studio announced the appointment through its Instagram account on Wednesday, sharing a carousel of archival imagery of the brand with its 186,000 followers.

Under the mandate, Formafantasma will work across products, packaging, communication, retail spaces and events, in close dialogue with the company's internal team and with specialists drawn from different disciplines.

The studio said the product would remain its primary point of departure, with particular attention paid to quality and to the expertise and processes through which it is made.

Formafantasma framed the brief as an exercise in continuity rather than reinvention. Its stated intention, it said, is not to redefine Santa Maria Novella through a new image but to build on what already exists, understanding what has allowed the house to remain relevant since 1221 and how that history can inform its present and future.

The appointment lands at a transitional moment for the Italian beauty brand. Santa Maria Novella is widely considered the world's oldest apothecary, founded by Dominican friars who arrived in Florence in 1221 and settled at the site that gave the company its name, cultivating herbs to prepare medicines for their monastery's infirmary.