Just weeks before the Fall Winter 2025 show, Sabato De Sarno announced his departure from Gucci, less than two years after joining the fashion house. Dior’s recent triumphant menswear show that featured opulent opera coats would also signal Kim Jones’ curtain call as he concludes his even-year tenure. While changes in creative direction for fashion houses have always occurred, with notable departures such as Marc Jacobs from Louis Vuitton, the exodus in 2024 and 2025 points to a more concerning paradigm shift. In fashion, F seems to stand for anything but Family.
F IS FOR FAST
According to WWD, half of the 40 fashion houses analysed currently have creative directors helming with a tenure of five years or less. Gone are the long-term arrangements, such as those of Karl Lagerfeld, who once held lifelong contracts with Fendi and Chanel. The speed at which luxury fashion now moves rivals consumer goods and fast fashion. Creative directors and their teams are constantly releasing countless variations of best-selling silhouettes and statement pieces that make their way between print and photo calls. Take Dior, for example. It pumps out about 10 collections a year — eight of which have staged shows — across its men’s and women’s lines. Are fashion houses setting these directors up for success with such little time allocated towards them building a narrative? Using Balenciaga’s notorious slavic-goth-street look as a reference, it needed time from its inception in 2018 to slowly unravel and become the brand’s new norm. The Triple S sneaker, kitschy Bazar bags reminiscent of red-white-blue bags, caution tape dresses and subversive take on Cristobal’s hourglass silhouette needed to be introduced as seasons progressed like a gradual rise in temperature for an authentic narrative. The whiplash-like speeds at which creative directors have to pump out new merchandise have only driven consumers off the fashion treadmill, opting for dupes or venturing out of fashion completely. How often do you take your nice pair of loafers out for a spin besides the occasional indoor wedding?
In fashion’s rat race, where micro trends lead fickle consumers into making loud proclamations about retiring skinny jeans until their favourite pop star rocks it at an airport, talks about quality and cost per wear become pure artifice. As a result, bootlegs and fast fashion alternatives — worn and photographed once, indiscernible on 15-slide photo dumps — have trickled in as most want to achieve looks without committing to and paying for the real deal.
F IS FOR FATIGUE
Apart from micro-moments on the red carpet and novelty designs like Loewe’s cracked egg stiletto, the sheer excess of fashion we experience at any given time makes it hard to fully appreciate all the newness that comes our way. As stylists and brands clamour to usurp the last most-liked Instagram post, a sense of fatigue looms among consumers. We have got accustomed to most forms of subversions — from the “normalisation” of luxury fashion, and the appropriation of subcultures to materialising every unexpected collaboration imaginable. This is not an issue of whether creative directors have the capacity to create something original and fresh, but whether what they produce gets the airtime they need to cultivate allure and affinity. Alternatively, price hikes from brands like Burberry, whose designs under Daniel Lee have been reported to be 58 per cent more expensive than before, drive the sense of fatigue further among middle-class audiences. While star-studded campaigns may play a tremendous role in driving the fantasy, a cotton poplin shirt remains a cotton poplin shirt — there is a ceiling regarding how much consumers are willing to pay. The unattainability of these new releases has only directed consumers towards vintage luxury.
F IS FOR FINANCIAL PRESSURE
From a financial perspective, fashion is currently in a very different space than it was five years ago. During the pandemic years, a new generation of luxury shoppers appeared to have more disposable income with fewer avenues to spend during lockdown. However, the gains in volume were moderate compared to the main factor that drove luxury fashion’s significant growth — 80 per cent of the development was contributed by price hikes, according to McKinsey. Now that consumers have shifted their aspirations towards luxury experiences rather than material goods, the task for creative directors to create a narrative that justifies these already-inflated fantasies becomes an act of swimming against the current. When De Sarno was hired to imbue Gucci with a spirit of timelessness to refresh its previously maximalist approach, the brand found itself in a precarious position because the remaining fans of its old look could no longer relate to the brand. Those who resonated with its cleaner aesthetic had many more options to shop from. Gucci’s 24 per cent revenue dip in 2024 Q4 (and 23 per cent overall) and its decision to shutter 50 stores globally indicates a wider, systemic issue that lies beyond a creative director’s job scope. Brands like Prada and Rabanne have strategised by expanding into fine jewellery and cosmetics to capture wallet shares beyond ready-to-wear and leather goods.
F IS FOR FORGO THE LEGACY?
How necessary, or how much does a creative director have to adhere to the house codes for the sake of a consistent narrative? What a creative director can successfully bring to the table depends heavily on their predecessors along with the current reputation, or lack thereof, the brand possesses. A notable example includes Hedi Slimane’s rock-and-roll, bourgeoisie take on Celine, whose stark departure from Phoebe Philo’s monastic, minimal vision received criticism during its earlier collections for bearing the same formula from his days at Saint Laurent and Dior Homme. While his cut-and-paste approach has garnered commercial success and an eventual following, Celine’s previous target audience was left with an insatiable thirst for archival pieces from the vintage market. On the other hand, Seán McGirr’s first collection for McQueen was criticised for its reductive take on Lee McQueen’s iconic silhouettes, which ultimately lacked grit and spirit. So where does a creative director stand in terms of extending a brand’s legacy, or is it an open brief, as long as merchandise does not end up at discount outlets? This also challenges the concept of hiring a high-profile designer, as contrasted by Daniel Lee and Riccardo Tisci’s varying commercial success at Burberry, compared to their days at Bottega and Givenchy respectively.
Burnout in fashion takes place on both creators’ and consumers’ ends, pointing to a larger issue at hand. In the business of wearable, commercial art, which truly takes a whole village to create an immersive experience, the shift of creative heads merely points towards an industry-wide issue. With brands like Mulberry and Saint Laurent lowering their prices to broaden their brand appeal, will others follow suit? The induction of creative directors into sportswear and fast fashion brands like Clare Waight Keller and Lemaire for Uniqlo suggests the universality of their artistic sensibilities. Could we witness a reduction of collections and more fleshed-out narratives of each season that go beyond soundbites of celebrities waxing poetic about how beautiful the set is? Or will there be a trend of guest designers just as Marc Jacobs did for Fendi and the evolving roster of designers at Jean Paul Gaultier? Right now, it seems that luxury fashion’s flight of fantasy needs time and a little breathing room to take off.
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