Creative directors (chapter 1): The star debutants’ ball

The new year promises to be rich in discoveries. Several creative director slots have been filled at some of the most prestigious luxury houses in the course of 2024, even in the run-up to the year-end festivities. For example at Chanel which, after six months of uncertainty, chose Matthieu Blazy to write its new chapter. Meanwhile, several outgoing designers have not yet found a destination, while others, though still in office, might be under threat, according to certain rumours. In this first overview, FashionNetwork.com has listed the most significant creative director debuts expected for 2025 at some of fashion’s leading labels.

The first must-attend event in 2025 is Lanvin’s runway return. The Parisian fashion house owned by Chinese giant Lanvin Group (formerly the Fosun Fashion Group) has been absent from Paris Fashion Week since March 2023. The show will be the chance to discover the work of Lanvin’s new creative director, British designer Peter Copping, who took charge last June, just over a year after his predecessor Bruno Sialelli left the house. Lanvin will close Paris Fashion Week Men with a co-ed show on the evening of January 26, just before the start of Haute Couture Week, which will begin the following day.

Calvin Klein is making its New York Fashion Week comeback, after a six-year+ absence, with a new creative director, Italian designer Veronica Leoni, head of style at the Quira label and formerly with Jil Sander, Celine, Moncler and The Row. She took over a position that until 2018 had been held by Raf Simons. Leoni’s first collection for the US label owned by PVH Corp. will be unveiled at New York Fashion Week on February 7.

2024 was a handover year at Alberta Ferretti. At the end of September, the eponymous designer decided to step down from the creative director role, while retaining that of vice-president of Italian fashion group Aeffe, which she founded in 1980 with her brother Massimo. She has been replaced by Lorenzo Serafini, who was in charge of design at the label’s young line, Philosophy, for 10 years. In 2025, Philosophy will merge with the Alberta Ferretti collections, whose new look is set to be unveiled in February in Milan.

Also in Milan, the womenswear fashion week in February is set to be the first showcase for the work of David Koma at Blumarine, the label owned since 2019 by the Exelite (ex-Eccellenze Italiane) holding company, belonging to Liu Jo’s founder and boss Marco Marchi. Koma took over as creative director in July from Walter Chiapponi, who left the Italian luxury label in a hurry only four months after being hired, having designed just one collection. Georgia-born Koma will continue to take care also of his own label, which shows in London.

To everyone’s surprise, Filippo Grazioli, who had been in charge of style at Missoni since 2022, was dismissed last October. The Italian label’s new creative director is Alberto Caliri, who has been with Missoni since 1998. He was for many years the right-hand man of Angela Missoni, daughter of the label’s founder Ottavio. In 2021, when Angela retired from the creative director role she had held for 24 years, Caliri took charge of the ready-to-wear collections, an interim role until Grazioli’s arrival. Caliri then went on to oversee the Missoni Home furniture line, and is now the head of design for all the Missoni lines. This year, the label will present its new coordinated lifestyle image, incorporating women’s ready-to-wear, menswear and home decoration and furniture.

After Milan, it will be Paris’s turn to showcase the new names in charge of design at several labels. Notably, in early March, with the Givenchy show, the first to be held under Sarah Burton’s aegis. Until October 2023, Burton had spent her entire career at Kering-owned Alexander McQueen, and was replaced there by Seán McGirr. Burton took the helm of LVMH-owned Parisian house Givenchy last September, assuming the role vacated nine months earlier by US designer Matthew M. Williams. Given that Burton’s professional profile is very different from that of her predecessor, a new chapter is expected to begin for Givenchy, a label renowned for its sophisticated elegance.

There are two main reasons to look forward to Tom Ford‘s next runway show. First, because the US label, whose fashion business is run by the Ermenegildo Zegna group, is moving from Milan to Paris, where it will show in March. Second, because the event will mark not only a new creative departure for Tom Ford, but also the highly anticipated return to the fashion scene of Haider Ackermann, who closed down his own label in 2020. Ackermann, a Frenchman with Colombian roots who likes to draw his inspiration from global cultures, is renowned for his tailoring and draped cuts, and has replaced Peter Hawkings. The latter was in charge of style at Tom Ford for barely a year, having taken over from the eponymous Texan founder after he retired in spring 2023.

The show by Dries Van Noten, owned by Spanish group Puig, is also expected to draw a crowd on March 5, as it will unveil the first collection developed by Belgian designer Julian Klausner. A member of the in-house design team, Klausner rose to the rank of creative director in December, and has the delicate mission of taking over the baton from the label’s founder, iconic couturier Dries Van Noten, who retired last June.

Again in March, the Paris Fashion Week show by Miu Miu will be worth keeping an eye out for. The young line by Italy’s Prada group is still managed by Creative Director Miuccia Prada, but it is undergoing a major change within its design studio. The label has gone from strength to strength in recent seasons, and its highly regarded head of design Dario Vitale is about to leave. He will be reportedly replaced at the end of January by Francesca Nicoletti, who has been working with him for several years.

The Italian luxury label has picked Louise Trotter to replace Blazy, who left for Chanel, having been in charge of style at Bottega Veneta since 2021. The British designer is inbound from Carven, where she was named creative director in 2023. She is due to take up her new position at the Kering-owned label at the end of January. The date of her first runway show has not been set, but it is expected to be in September, as one of the highlights of Milan Fashion Week.

The most hotly anticipated event at next October’s Paris Fashion Week, for the Spring-Summer 2026 season, will undoubtedly be the Chanel show. After months of crazy rumours, it was Blazy who landed the job of the century. He succeeds Virginie Viard, who left the house in June after five years as creative director, and over 30 years as Karl Lagerfeld’s closest collaborator. A way for Chanel to close once and for all the chapter of its history written by the Kaiser. Talented French designer Blazy assumed his new role at the start of 2025, and his mission is to modernise the venerable Parisian house, while making it ever more desirable.

In October 2024, Hedi Slimane left Celine, a label he successfully relaunched in 2018. His successor was appointed only a few hours after the announcement of Slimane’s departure. US designer Michael Rider, who has a 20-year experience in the luxury industry, is joining the LVMH-owned label at the start 2025. Rider has worked at Balenciaga and Ralph Lauren, and notably also at Céline from 2008 to 2018, under Phoebe Philo. The launch date of his first collection is not yet known, but it is expected to be in the coming autumn.