Fashion’s Historic Shake-Up – The New York Times

This fall, a dozen of the biggest brands in fashion will have new talent at the helm. What makes them tick?

By Vanessa Friedman
Visuals By Federico Sorrentino

Welcome to the season of seismic fashion change. The tectonic plates of the industry are shifting, remaking the landscape in a way that hasn’t been seen since … well, ever. This year almost 20 fashion houses, including some of the most famous, influential names (Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Balenciaga), appointed new designers, meaning the clothes you see in stores or on the street, or when you’re immersed in the endless digital scroll, will soon be very different.

After all, each designer will be trying to make their mark, break through the noise and redefine the very idea of chic, not to mention the look of the decade. That’s the opportunity. Those are the stakes.

Yet for all the change taking place, the actual change makers seem, at least on the surface, very much the same.

Of the 13 designers whose work we will see this season, only one is a woman — Louise Trotter, at Bottega Veneta. A dozen are white men, and 10 are between the ages of 40 and 47. Ten are Europeans and three are Americans. Despite the clear need to bring imagination to the catwalk, there seems to be a general lack of imagination when it comes to deciding whom to hire.

To get below the very similar surface, we asked this season’s new guard a set of simple questions — not about their plans for their brands but about their taste: their personal likes and dislikes when it comes to the stuff that surrounds them and the choices they make.

Who are the men and woman who will shape how you dress for the foreseeable future? Read on.

Mr. Piccioli, 57, comes to Balenciaga after 25 years at Valentino, 16 of them as creative director, where he was widely recognized for his bold use of color, his humanity (he regularly brought his entire couture atelier onto the runway for a bow) and his lack of grandiosity. (At Valentino he eschewed living in Rome to stay in the small seaside town where his family grew up.) Mr. Piccioli started his gig at Balenciaga by working alongside Demna, then its creative director, a rarity in fashion (two creative directors overlapping!) but one intended to create an easy transition for the team.

Ms. Trotter, 55, is the first woman to lead Bottega Veneta, the Italian fashion house known for its intrecciato woven handbags, in more than 20 years — and only the second since the house was founded in 1966. A Brit and the mother of three, she was also the first woman to become creative director of Lacoste, which she ran for five years before taking over Carven, a label she put back on the fashion map. Now she is bringing her bent for minimalist luxury and dry wit to Milan.

Mr. Rider, 44, didn’t have a traditional fashion education — he went to Brown University — but an early stint at Balenciaga under Nicolas Ghesquière followed by 10 years at Celine under Phoebe Philo and six years as creative director of Polo Ralph Lauren prepared him for his new post. He brought Celine back to the official runway after Hedi Slimane, his immediate predecessor, decided he would be beholden to no schedule but his own, and even brought Anna Wintour back to the front row, Mr. Slimane having banned her from the house. It’s the new open-door policy.

Mr. Blazy, 41, snagged the most coveted job in fashion in December after a six-month search by Chanel. He will be only the fourth designer in Chanel’s history, tasked with transforming the brand for a new generation. Most recently he did exactly that for Bottega Veneta, with a fashion sleight of hand that made leather look like denim — and leather look like cotton, and leather look like flannel. Now, as he comes home to Paris, he is expected to work a similar alchemy on the pearls, camellias and CCs of the house that Coco built and Karl Lagerfeld redefined.

Mr. Anderson, 40, made fashion history when he became the first Dior designer since Christian Dior himself to be in charge of both women’s and men’s wear for the house. (Moreover, Mr. Dior dabbled only in men’s pieces and never did a full collection, so in some ways Mr. Anderson is a pioneer.) An 11-year stint at Loewe, where he took the brand from largely irrelevant to one of the hottest names in fashion, with an estimated $2 billion in revenue, convinced LVMH, which owns Dior, that Mr. Anderson was the man to unite the two sides of the couture house. If that wasn’t a big enough gig, he’s still moonlighting as Luca Guadagnino’s costume designer.

Eyebrows were raised when the mononymic Demna, 44, announced that after a decade, he was leaving Balenciaga, the fashion house he had taken from ivory tower elegance to pop culture phenomenon, to attempt a turnaround at Gucci. The Georgian-born designer, who will split his time between Los Angeles and Milan, now has to prove he can achieve the rare feat of reinventing himself and his (new) house, not merely repeat himself. Fans like Kim Kardashian, Nicole Kidman and Michelle Yeoh will be watching.

Mr. Lantink, 38, founded his namesake label in 2019, a year after Janelle Monáe wore his “vagina” pants in her “Pynk” music video. The Dutch designer won the Andam Special Prize in 2023 and LVMH’s Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize in 2024, but it was a stunt during his fall 2025 ready-to-wear show — putting a topless man in a prosthetic female torso and vice versa — that made him internet famous. He shares a glee in thumbing his nose at propriety with the Gaultier founder, not to mention a facility for using fabric to reshape the body.

No one ever thought the Swiss label Bally would be a must-see of Milan Fashion Week, but that’s what happened after Mr. Bellotti, 47, took over in 2022 after 16 years behind the scenes at Gucci. At Bally, his penchant for accessorizing rigorous tailoring with strawberries and cowbells demanded that everyone look twice and should serve him well at Jil Sander, where he takes over from Luke and Lucie Meier.

Mr. McCollough and Mr. Hernandez, both 47, became the latest Americans in Paris when they were handed the reins of Loewe earlier this year. As part of the deal, they stepped down from Proenza Schouler, the New York label they founded in 2002 (just after graduating from Parsons School of Design) and upped stakes for France, the better to concentrate on Loewe, where they are following in the (large) footsteps of Jonathan Anderson.

Like Martin Margiela, Glenn Martens, 42, is Belgian. Like Martin Margiela, he went to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. (Mr. Martens graduated first in his class.) Like Mr. Margiela, he has a propensity for experimentalism and challenging classical ideas of beauty. Moreover, he is not just taking over the house that Mr. Margiela built, he is following in the footsteps of John Galliano, the most recent creative director, and doing double duty at Diesel, which he also designs.

Mr. Castro Freitas, 45, was catapulted from unknown to must-know overnight when he was chosen to succeed Casey Cadwallader at Mugler, the house that big shoulders, bigger spectacles and a perfume called Angel built. Still, the Portuguese designer and Central Saint Martins grad has Dior (under John Galliano), Saint Laurent and Dries Van Noten on his résumé.

The first Versace creative director who is not actually a Versace, Mr. Vitale, 41, comes to the fashion house after 15 years at Miu Miu, most recently as design director under Miuccia Prada during its period of explosive growth. His experience working with Mrs. P should stand him in good stead at Versace, since the Prada Group acquired the brand with the Medusa logo earlier this year.