LOS ANGELES — This week, with the confirmation from LVMH on Monday that Jonathan Anderson is taking over creative direction of the women’s, men’s and haute couture collections at Dior, all of the empty chairs at fashion’s top houses have now been filled. The pieces are now in place for the biggest fashion month ever this autumn.
Among all the creative reshuffling, three of our industry’s most talented designers have ended up with three of the biggest jobs at a critical time when luxury is facing a global downturn. In addition to Anderson’s new role at LVMH-owned Dior, Demna is gearing up for his debut at Gucci, which will come after his final couture show for Balenciaga in July, and Matthieu Blazy is now installed at Chanel.
That most of the big design roles have been filled by men has been a big topic in fashion of late. Save for Sarah Burton at Givenchy, Chemena Kamali at Chloé, Veronica Leoni at Calvin Klein Collection, Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta and Silvia Venturini Fendi at Fendi, all of the big jobs in fashion are occupied by men. Loewe, Balenciaga, Jil Sander, Celine and Maison Margiela have also appointed men as creative directors.
On Thursday, I popped into Neiman Marcus in Los Angeles, to take the temperature of what all of these changes mean. The store was a ghost town with nary a customer in sight. Admittedly, it was only 10:30 a.m. — a bit early for a splurge, but the countless displays shilling luxury fashion and leather goods for “up to 50 percent off” spoke volumes about the state of the business today.
As I was examining the Burberry wares on the ground floor (lots of trench coats and accessories emphasising the Burberry check), one of the store’s employees and a dedicated BoF reader approached me to say hello. I asked how business was doing and he simply motioned around the shop-in-shops by Dior, Chanel, Bottega Veneta and Loewe and said all of this is about to change. Customers (and Neiman Marcus sales associates) are mostly in wait-and-see mode, he said, as the upcoming fashion season will bring a lot of creative transformation.
This is long overdue.
Gucci is the lynchpin of the Kering group, where sales have nosedived. Revenues at Kering’s flagship brand plummeted by 23 percent in 2024 to €7.7 billion ($8.8 billion), down from €9.9 billion in 2023. The decline worsened in Q1 2025, with a 25 percent drop year on year. The group’s share price has tumbled by more than 60 percent over the last two years.
When Kering executives announced in March that Demna would move from Balenciaga to Gucci in July, luxury market analysts and industry watchers scratched their heads. But I remain convinced that if Demna — one of the most gifted and thoughtful designers working fashion — is able to re-imagine Gucci and move on from his once ultra-popular Balenciaga aesthetic, this could be a very smart move because it simultaneously gives Demna a new creative challenge while breathing new life into Gucci, which accounts for more than 60 percent of Kering’s profits.
Then there’s Chanel, where Matthieu Blazy is in the hot seat. Known for his incredibly creative, globally inspired, craft-focused fashion shows at Bottega Veneta, Blazy has been tasked with upping Chanel’s fashion quotient. With the most well-defined codes of any luxury brand, as well as a slew of iconic products (think quilted leather flap bags like the 2.55, bouclé tweed suits and bi-colour patent shoes), the brand is pretty resilient even in times of trouble.
But without a strong fashion direction, Chanel’s cultural relevance has waned since the passing of Karl Lagerfeld in 2019. Meanwhile, revenues fell by $1 billion in 2024, down 4.3 percent year on year, as Chanel continued to raise prices by an average of 59 percent between 2020 and 2023, leading customers to question the value of Chanel’s products and pull back from the brand’s core leather goods offering. Executives are counting on Blazy to bring back Chanel’s fashion magic while they think about how to recalibrate their pricing strategy.
It’s a similar story at Dior, where prices increased by an average of 53 percent over the same period. LVMH does not break out individual brand performance, but said revenues declined by “slightly more” than the average 5 percent decline in the group’s fashion and leather goods division in the first quarter of 2025. In an in-depth interview announcing Anderson’s appointment, Delphine Arnault agreed with me that pricing is a big issue to address. For now, she is counting on Anderson’s creativity and a focus on customer experience in Dior’s upcoming megastores in Los Angeles and New York, to help turn things around.
As I was walking the floor of Neiman Marcus it was hard not to note that with the departures of Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior and Virginie Viard at Chanel, men are back in charge. While pricing and fashion oomph may have been challenges under their tenures, Chiuri and Viard both oversaw an unprecedented expansion of these megabrands post-Covid, leaving me wondering if what might be gained in fashion relevance could lead to a lack of the connection these female designers were able to foster with their female customers.
I’ve been asking some industry insiders why there is such a paucity of women at the helm of the big brands. One person posited that it’s because all of the number two designers — the first go-to when brands are looking to appoint a new creative director — are also mostly men. Seems like that old adage that we tend to pick people who look like us holds true in fashion as well.
If this is indeed the case, the change we need to see regarding women in the ranks of the industry’s top creative positions needs to start with some of these men appointing more women as their number two.
Fine. But there has to be more to it than just this explanation. Truly understanding (and valuing) how women designers connect differently to their customers — and giving them the opportunities to demonstrate this — must also be part of the change. Otherwise, the reign of men in top jobs is set to continue.
Imran Amed, Founder and Editor in Chief
P.S. Please join us next Monday, June 9 and Tuesday, June 10 for The Business of Beauty Global Forum 2025 livestream with speakers including Hailey Rhode Bieber and Tracee Ellis Ross. Register now.
Below are my top picks from our analysis on fashion, luxury and beauty this week:
1. Under Pressure: Can Fashion’s Sustainability Efforts Survive? With the industry in tariff paralysis and policymakers rolling back regulation, sustainable fashion advocates worry the movement is running out of steam.
2. Case Study | The New Rules for Getting Acquired. Securing an exit at a desirable valuation has gotten harder for start-ups in recent years. But brands with strong growth strategies and loyal followings can still attract buyers that will maintain their integrity while taking their businesses to the next level, regardless of economic conditions.
3. How to Revive a Sleeping Beauty Watch Brand. A group of investors is reviving the Danish watch company Urban Jürgensen, a 250-year-old name revered by connoisseurs but largely unknown outside that bubble.
4. Is Nike Finally Winning With Women? With bold marketing, a revamped leadership team under new brand president Amy Montagne and star power from A’ja Wilson, Nike’s long-promised women’s push is starting to stick.
5. Beauty’s Hottest New Trend: The Founder Buyback. Original influencer Huda Kattan has regained majority ownership of her namesake beauty brand and sent a message to the greater industry: When it’s time to course-correct, you need your best driver.
This Weekend on The BoF Podcast
Emily Oberg grew up far away from the fashion world in Calgary, Canada. After moving to New York for a role at the media company Complex, Oberg quickly built her profile as a tastemaker in the streetwear scene.
But eventually, she got the entrepreneurial itch and leveraged her experience to turn Sporty & Rich, which started as a mood board on Instagram, into a multi-million-dollar brand with a dedicated community following.
On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to sit down with Emily to reflect on her unconventional path into fashion, how she made strategic business choices to grow her business, and the significance of world-building in creating an aspirational lifestyle brand.
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