Demna is in at Gucci, Sarah Burton has gone to Givenchy, and Matthieu Blázy is headed to Chanel, but will Jonathan Anderson leave Loewe?
If the stock market runs on quarterly projections and rumored mergers, fashion is fueled by the steady stream of shifting creative directors. A change is always a gamble, and the results can be catastrophic or miraculous. For the titans of industry who own major fashion conglomerates, the risks are worth it. But what about those shoppers who have become attached to a designer based on his or her work at a specific house? Will they follow their favorite designer to the ends of the earth (or at least the next Kering property)?
For certain kinds of shoppers—those who stick to the accessory department or logo-loyal top spenders—the shuffle of creative direction won’t matter much. But, for those who gleefully follow the trend cycle and live and die by the work of their favorite designer, it’s a dizzying time to try and follow along.
Eden Pritikin first discovered Nicolas Ghesquière, currently the creative director of womenswear at Louis Vuitton, in 2012. At the time, he was finishing out his tenure at Balenciaga, a run that started in 1997. Pritikin, who is now a fashion archivist and head of sourcing at Resee, was in high school and busy giving herself a fashion education via hours spent pouring over Style.com. She fell in love with the scrappiness and unpolished coolness of Ghesquière’s work at Balenciaga (“Super French,” she says.)
The first piece she bought was a jungle-print top from the 2003 Balenciaga collection. Eventually, she amassed more than 120 Balenciaga pieces. She sees Ghesquière’s work as a salve against the polish of quiet luxury. “Everything that Nicolas does goes against the grain.”
There’s no question that Pritikin’s obsession revolves around the designer, not the house he’s working for. When Ghesquière left Balenciaga, she found herself in mourning. “I was like, wait, I just got here. You can’t leave already!” But as a newly-minted fan, she was excited to see him go somewhere as big as Louis Vuitton, and she regards her interest in his work as a sort of long-term emotional investment. “The fact that he’s stayed there so long made me feel like I put my eggs in the right basket.”
These days, she has downsized her collection to just five favorites, occasionally selling additional finds via Instagram, where she’ll also chronicle key looks from Ghesquière’s time at both Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. While she doesn’t follow current Balenciaga at all, with the recent departure of Demna, she may change her mind, she teases, “Tif the rumors are true, in the future there’s always room for me to come back to that brand.”
Frédérique Gilain-Huneeus shares Pritikin’s designer-first approach. When the finance lawyer logs on to talk to me about her love of Phoebe Philo, she’s dressed the part of a super fan in a gray rough-hemmed top, layered knit, earrings, and bracelets—all Céline via the Phoebe Philo era. On one finger, a ring from Philo’s new line. In total, she owns over 400 pieces from Céline and 25 from Philo’s label.
From left: Chloé Fall 2025, Chloé Spring 2005
“She’s bought by people who want to wear the clothes,” Gilain-Huneeus explains of Philo, who completed stints at Chloé and Céline before announcing her own label in 2021. “These women have normal lives, they are real people.” In fact, Gilain-Huneeus and her group of Phoebe-loving friends have built a community around their love for wearing the designer—chatting over their finds via an Instagram group called Celine Queens. Though she doesn’t always like Philo’s new work, she’s happy to pick and choose pieces, knowing there will always be something in a collection that she wants to wear. Philo doesn’t seem at all interested in going back to helm a major brand, but if she did, Gilain-Huneeus and her friends would be in the group chat planning the best way to shop the collection.
In an earlier era, a designer might remain at a house for decades, endlessly iterating on the house codes. (Look at Karl Lagerfeld, who led Chanel from 1983 to 2019.) But now, it’s not uncommon for creative directors to leave after less than five years. And while some shoppers just want to follow their favorites to the ends of the earth, others are attracted to the idea of newness. A young, buzzy creative director can infuse a fashion house with fresh ideas—and create a new opportunity for collectors.
Fashion sourcer Gab Waller says that for her clients, a creative director’s first collection can mark not just a turning point, but also a chance to own a piece of history. Take for example the arrival of Chemena Kamali, who joined Chloé in 2023. “I have not received requests for Chloé in years,” Waller says. “Suddenly, it’s on the map.”
Chloé Ready to Wear Fall Winter 2025
Buying a rarified item with the intention of owning a piece of what may be the next Phoebe Philo for Céline or Tom Ford for Gucci is a promising temptation, but given how quickly things seem to shift, it’s not necessarily the reality. Waller notes that in 2019 and 2020 she saw a huge spike in interest for pieces from Bottega Veneta, but when Daniel Lee left for Burberry, she didn’t see the same fervor follow. “The issue at hand is that they switch so quickly, it’s hard to build that strong community.”
In fact, some of the most beloved creative directors of the current era are those who have helmed their brands for decades without interruption—think Rick Owens or Miuccia Prada. The long-term evolution of a point of view can be just as important as the attention it gets in the present moment. For these long-seated designers, that groundswell has led to super fandoms.
For collectors, a fashion-minded group of shoppers who see a creative director’s tenure as a chance to own a piece of history, it’s not always a designer’s arrival that breeds excitement, but their departure. A legacy that’s quietly beloved in the moment may take off when seen in the rear-view mirror (or when rumors of the next move start to swirl). Look at what happened when Dries Van Noten stepped down from his eponymous brand last year or, more recently, when Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler announced their departure. (The Real Real’s Head of Fashion and Strategic Partnerships (Noelle Sciacca says that searches for Proenza Schouler jumped 30 percent following the announcement.)
Balenciaga Ready to Wear FW 2025
In the past, The Real Real would specially label vintage pieces on the website, making them easy to search by creative directors in addition to the brands themselves. Based on the current merry-go-round of creative directors and customer interest, that idea is now being applied to contemporary designers. When Blázy’s departure from Bottega was announced, searches for the brand jumped 150 percent. “We saw specifically people search for Bottega, but put his name in the actual search bar,” Sciacca says. “[Creative directors] are becoming their own celebrity and search term.”
Mathieu Blázy will undoubtedly have buzzy pieces in his upcoming Chanel debut, and for the capital-F Fashion enthusiasts, it will spark think pieces, trend stories, and shopping sprees. Ultimately, his legacy won’t be determined by the shopper who buys a black flap bag or a tweed jacket, but by the next generation of Pritikins, who will find something in his work that resonates even once he’s gone. But without the promise of time to build out his vision, that’s a lot to live up to.
