2024 Saw Huge Creative Director Reshuffles, but 2025 Is When the Fun Begins
Fashion’s game of musical chairs — where creative directors are hired, fired, and promoted, rotating around various fashion companies — has been going strong for decades. But, now it's being played out in double time.
Creative director tenures are the shortest they’ve ever been, lasting as little as a single season in some cases, significantly increasing the amount of hiring, firing, and promoting that happens — meaning we’ve got a lot to catch up on.
In the last 12 months, there have been umpteen high-profile designer shake-ups, all culminating in a truly wild December.
First, On December 11, John Galliano exited Maison Margiela after a decade at the company. And, in a lengthy goodbye letter, he couldn’t help but stoke the fire by cryptically teasing that his new role would be announced soon.
"The rumors... Everyone wants to know and everyone wants to dream. When the time is right, all will be revealed," wrote Galliano.
The rumors are that Galliano is headed back to Dior in what would be a shock appointment — Galliano was fired from the house in 2011 for a drug and alcohol-induced anti-semitic rant. Galliano, who underwent rehabilitation after his firing, touched on the importance of forgiveness in the aforementioned lengthy letter but there was no time to really ponder on the implications of Dior re-hiring Galliano. The next day, December 12, the musical chairs really ramped up.
Suddenly, in the space of around three hours, all the rumors circulating in the fashion industry over the past few months were confirmed. It was a whirlwind, so hold tight.
First, Louise Trotter departed from Carven, then she was swiftly hired as Bottega Veneta’s creative director, leaving Matthieu Blazy, who had held the position until then, momentarily jobless. Within an hour, Blazy was confirmed as the new artistic director of Chanel.
Speculation about who would take over the French fashion house has been rife since Virginie Viard left Chanel in June 2024. Seemingly every creative director on the planet was being linked with the job at one point or another, and the silence from Chanel was deafening.
Only three years ago much of the fashion industry was scratching its head wondering who Matthieu Blazy, the then-new creative director of Bottega Veneta, was. Now, through his triumphs at the brand, he takes one of the most lauded roles in fashion. It’s by far the biggest creative director shake-up of 2024, however, it’s far from being the only one.
Many more tried-and-tested, well-respected designers were on the move this year, finding themselves either booted out from or newly embraced by equally well-respected fashion houses.
Alessandro Michele came first, drafted into Valentino in March to replace Pierpaolo Piccioli who had worked for the fashion house for 25 years.
Michele spun his usual dream-like, maximalist, ‘70s-imbued story for his Valentino debut, combining his signature taste with the history of his new employer. And he did the same for the follow-up collection, his Valentino runway debut. Some critics feel this is too similar to his work at Gucci, where he transformed the brand into a whimsical, flowery, and very profitable company, others say it is a needed switch in approach for Valentino.
Whichever camp you sit in, one thing is undeniable: Michele is, after just shy of two years without a permanent position, very much back. The same can’t be said for Piccioli, but more on that later.
There was also movement at fellow Italian giant Fendi, with Kim Jones leaving his role at the brand to concentrate fully on being artistic director at Dior Men’s — although, those industry whispers about John Galliano’s potential return mean his Dior role is also hanging in the balance. And the aforementioned Piccioli is being peddled as his likely replacement at Fendi. (Are you keeping up?)
The Fendi job is a big open vacancy, as is the one at Helmut Lang since Peter Do’s departure, at Y/Project after Glenn Martens left, and at Maison Margiela now without John Galliano. There are some big names, such as Pierpaolo Piccoli and Jeremy Scott, floating around without a role currently, could they soon be announced as the creative lead in any of these roles?
Rounding off the big-name hires from 2024: Matthew M. Williams stepped down from Givenchy at the end of last year to be replaced by Sarah Burton in September while Haider Ackermann has been a busy man, stepping into creative director roles at Tom Ford and Canada Goose.
Now, onto the insurgents. A new generation of creative directors, respected industry insiders making a step up and into the limelight, have been appointed.
Michael Rider was the first to be plucked from relative fashion obscurity. A veteran designer, formerly of Polo Ralph Lauren women's, Rider steps in at the head of CELINE — a company he had a 10-year stint working for, partially under Phoebe Philo — replacing the more established Hedi Slimane.
Then there is 33-year-old Julian Klausner. He started working at Dries Van Noten in late 2018, two years after graduating from La Cambre in Brussels and following a stint as a junior designer at Maison Margiela. Klausner will replace Van Noten in 2025 as the creative director of the brand following its founder's retirement.
Both Klausner and Rider are joining a new batch of previously near-anonymous designers who recently started roles at the head of a big fashion house. In the past few years, the likes of Sabato De Sarno at Gucci, Seán McGirr at Alexander McQueen, and Stefano Gallici, a former Haider Ackermann assistant leading Ann Demeulemesteer, have been similarly thrust into their biggest jobs to date.
All the above names are working to establish themselves in the same way other recent designers have in their first big role; such as Alessandro Michele, a little-known Gucci designer before being promoted to creative director director in 2015, or Matthieu Blazy, who now counts being the head of Chanel as his second creative director role.
How their hiring will play out is something we’ll have to wait until next year to see. In fact, with all of the creative director movements that the last year has brought, 2025 is set up to be a bumper year of fashion firsts: alongside Klausner and Rider’s debuts at Dries Van Noten and CELINE respectively, there will be debut collections from Sarah Burton at Givenchy, Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten, and Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta.
Plus, we’ll likely see new hires and debut collections at Maison Margiela, Fendi, Helmut Lang, and Y/Project.
If you thought 2024’s creative director musical chairs was difficult to keep up with (and it was) just wait for 2025.
