SUKO Magazine

Constant Burnout’s Guide to the SS26 Fashion Month Creative Director Debuts

By @constantburnout , September 17 2025

Luxury fashion just had its biggest creative direction shake up in the post-pandemic period since Bernard Arnold’s purchasing rampage of luxury fashion houses in late 80s to 90s. From century-old legacy houses to newer Avant-Garde houses, over a dozen newly appointed creative directors will showcase their new visions of their respective houses, making the upcoming SS26 fashion month one of the most anticipated in recent memory. The significance of the appointment of Pierpaolo Piccioli for Balenciaga, Matthieu Blazy for Chanel, Luise Trotter for Bottega Veneta, Miguel Castro Freitas for Mugler, Duran Lantink for Jean Paul Gaultier, Jack McCollough & Lazaro Hernandez for Loewe, Jonathan Anderson for Dior, and Glenn Marten for Maison Margiela cannot be understated. Despite the flurry of appointments, the faces themselves are largely familiar. Nearly all are white men, with Luise Trotter the sole woman in the line up. While the political problem of fashion’s homogeneity is perhaps a topic deserving its own separate discourse, the question for now is whether these RTW debuts can cut through a slowing luxury market and articulate fresh, convincing visions for how we should dress today.

Pierpaolo Piccioli for Balenciaga
October 4th

Pierpaolo Piccioli is previously known for his creative direction at Valentino from 2008 to 2024. During his tenure, he was credited alongside Maria Grazia Chiuri for creating some of the most successful accessories of the 2010’s: the Rockstud shoe and bags. He is also known for his opulent and bold styles, dramatic silhouettes, dazzling embellishment and unexpected colour-blocking mixed with innovative and traditional couture techniques.
Pierpaolo’s understanding of luxury dressing is in stark contrast to Demna’s (Balenciaga’s previous creative director) aesthetic universe, which was much more subversive to the luxury fashion space, inspired by post-Cold War Eastern European streetwear, and extreme oversized silhouettes. During Demna’s peak at Balenciaga (from the SS20 Parliament Show to the bondage bears and child abuse papers controversy), he produced theatrical, borderline prophetic shows that responded to global contemporary issues and created viral products season after season, completely changing the public perception of Balenciaga and making the brand one of the most searched terms on the Lyst Index¹.

As Balenciaga’s upcoming and former creative director’s visions are so distinct from each other, this transition is one of the most anticipated on the SS26 calendar. On Pierpaolo and Kering’s (Balenciaga’s parent company) announcement of the appointment, Pierpaolo stated that being the creative director of Balenciaga is one of his earliest dreams, as his first Instagram post was Cristobal Balenciaga’s 1967 white single seam wedding gown. Pierpaolo has stated that he has great respect for Demna’s tenure, and that he paid homage to Cristobal in his own way. Most people are expecting Pierpaolo to bring back the uncompromising sophistication and elegance of Cristobal. Others are curious to see whether he could continue building on some of the Demna codes and merging with his own couture aesthetic from Valentino.

Via Pierpaolo Piccioli (@pppiccioli) on Instagram, July 6, 2014

But no matter the direction Pierpaolo might choose to take, he seems to be fighting an uphill battle. Although his proposal for Valentino was tasteful and distinguished from a couture perspective, beauty in the current fashion landscape is not a hot commodity anymore. Students from fashion school today rarely engage the work of Cristobal, but rather with the Avant-Gardes of the 90s such as Raf Simons or Margiela. If he were to decide to retain some of the Demna-isms, he certainly does not command the same subcultural capital among younger consumers. Of course Pierpaolo has the capabilities to produce a viral moment, such as the ostrich saucer feather hat (SS18 couture), the feather eyelash look by Pat McGrath (SS19 couture), the all-white show with digital projection in collaboration with Nick Knight (FW20 couture), and the PP Pink show (FW22 RTW), but its virality was not as frequent and impactful as Demna at Balenciaga.

Instead, Pierpaolo’s tenure could be most successful if judged not by quarterly revenues or virality, but by his ability to continue Balenciaga’s legacy by tapping into the rich archives of Balenciaga and bringing forth a chapter of relentless beauty, elegance and fantasy to the ever-evolving and transformative house.

¹Since its debut in 2017, the quarterly Lyst Index has turned fashion’s shifting trends into a kind of competitive sport. The press loves it, brands celebrate it when they reach the top, and insiders often treat it as a reliable market thermometer.

Valentino Couture Spring 2018 feather hats. Getty Images via Harper’s Bazaar.

Matthieu Blazy for Chanel
October 6th

The news of Chanel announcing that Matthieu Blazy was going to become their creative director during a long period of vacancy after the departure of Virginie Viard, at the end of 2024, shocked and excited much of the fashion world. Shocked, because many, including myself, thought that it might be too soon for Blazy to leave Bottega, as he is still young and his talent as a creative director has just started blossoming at Bottega Veneta. Excited, because the Chanel collections post-Karl had been lackluster to say the least, and the house was in desperate need of a new creative vision.

Virginie Viard was the right-hand woman of Karl Lagrafeld at Chanel before she was appointed the role of Creative director herself in 2019. She worked closely with Lagerfeld on all 10 collections that Chanel produces each year. Karl was never a hands-on designer, as Azzedine Alaïa had famously said “Karl Lagerfeld never touched a pair of scissors in his life”. Virginie was really the force behind to make sure the sketches would turn into real clothes by the day of the show. But it is always sad to see the student not being able to reach the mastery of their teacher, as Virginie’s collections were truly unimaginative, often littered with looks that were extremely unflattering, and she quietly left the house in June last year.

Matthieu Blazy in many ways is the perfect candidate for Chanel. He has an artistic and cultural background like Karl, referencing the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni (1913) for his FW22 Bettega debut. Despite his youthful looks, he is a very seasoned and experienced designer, as he had worked under Raf Simon’s Calvin Klein, Phoebe Philo’s Celine, and was the secret artistic director of Maison Margiela (discovered and outed by fashion critic Suzy Menkes, who famously gave Blazy the praise “you can’t keep such a talent under wraps”), after the leave of the brand’s founder Martin Margiela. Without a doubt that the appointment of Blazy at Chanel would not only be an artistic one but also a commercially successful one, as he has created so many “it products” for Bottega, such as the Andiamo bag, the Parachute bag, the Hop bag, the Sardine bag, the Orbit sneaker, the Trompe-l'œil printed leather flannels, the Drop earring, and the list goes on and on. He is also brilliant at interpreting and reinventing house codes such as the Intrecciato leather weaving technique of Bottega, where he has introduced the Foulard Intrecciato leather in the Kalimero Città bag.

Left: Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913, cast 1931–34). Bronze. Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Right: Bottega Veneta, Look 13, Fall 2022 Ready-to-Wear. Featured in Vogue Runway.

The Intrecciato leather is to Bottega Veneta as tweed is to Chanel; and tweed was not always understood as the go to fabric for an elegant woman’s wardrobe. Gabrielle Chanel used tweed because she was inspired by her lover, Duke of Westminster’s Scottish country clothing to free women from the restrictive silhouette of the 1920s. When she put women into tweed, a traditional fabric for menswear for womenswear, she was a revolutionary in the context of womenswear of the 20s. The question is, how can Matthieu Blazy as the 4th EVER creative director of the house, bring in the new revolution to Chanel, to engage the Chanel Tweed into a new lexicon of fashion? With all this talent and potential packaged in such a handsome face, how could one not root for the success of Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel?

Luise Trotter for Bottega Veneta
September 27th

As the only woman currently in the Kering Group creative director roster, the first woman creative director at Bottega Veneta, and the ONLY NEW WOMAN CREATIVE DIRECTOR to debut in the SS26 calendar, the pressure is on Luise Trotter’s new-new-new Bottega² to excel artistically and financially. Fans of Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta are expecting to continue to innovate upon the house DNA, and the shareholders are begging for her to continue the steady financial growth of the brand that was under Blazy, as pretty much all other brands in the Kering’s portfolio’s revenue are dropping quarter after quarter post-pandemic.

British Designer Luise Trotter studied fashion at the Northumbria University of Newcastle. After graduation, she held numerous positions at known brands such as Calvin Klein, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, and Carven. She is most known for her tenure at the French sportswear label Lacoste, where she revamped the brand’s iconic logo and brought a playful, colourful, joyful energy to the brand’s aesthetic. Some are surprised by this appointment because Bottega will be her first experience at a true heritage luxury fashion house appointment. But male creative directors are hired based on their potential instead of accreditation all the time, most recently Sabato De Sarno at Gucci, who was both an artistic and a commercial failure.
However, I do not doubt her potential to unleash her own outstanding era of Bottega. As she has already soft-launched several custom Luise Trotter for Bottega Veneta looks at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and they are very promising. Trotter first dressed Julianne Moore for the premier red carpet of The Phoenician Scheme. Where Moore emerged in a simple and sleek one-shoulder black backless gown, the one shoulder strap revealed to be a flowing leather tassel, anchored by a knot at the collarbone. The leather strap took inspiration from the handle of Blazy’s Kalimero Città bag.

Left: Julianne Moore in custom Bottega Veneta at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival premiere of The Phoenician Scheme. Right: Vicky Krieps’ Bottega Veneta look at the 2025 Kering Women in Motion Awards.

Trotter also dressed actress Vicky Krieps for the Kering Women In Motion event in an apron-like leather dress in a deep warm brown, with cascading leather fringe expertly placed in front of the neckline, elongating her silhouette. Lastly, and my personal favourite, Krieps appeared for the Love Me Tender event in a backless Intrecciato leather bib top with refined white wide-legged trousers. Unlike previous iterations of the Intrecciato leather technique, the leather weave this time was made of different widths of leather strips, creating, instead of a diamond pattern, a mosaic of large and small leather squares and rectangles.

Vicky Krieps in custom Bottega Veneta at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival photocall for Love Me Tender. Courtesy of Bottega Veneta.

Luise Trotter has said in interviews with Highsnobiety on her design influences as being quite masculine, no matter the gender she is designing for, citing that she is very into sportswear and grew up playing tennis and watching football. And you can easily see these masculine and sportswear influences in these Cannes custom looks. Additionally, Trotter is signalling that she is very capable in interpreting the house codes, and textile experimentation will remain at the forefront of her tenure at Bottega Veneta. As Bottega is Kering’s most steady growing brand in the face of the “luxury slowdown”, the pressure on Trotter is disproportionately high. But if these early signals are any indication, Trotter’s ‘new-new-new Bottega’ may emerge not through spectacle or virality, but through a subtle reframing of the house codes, one defined by aerodynamic lines, masculine sportswear influences, and material innovation.

Pierpaolo Piccioli, Matthieu Blazy, and Luise Trotter will present perhaps the most anticipated collections of the SS26 season, as each of these experienced designers has the opportunity to demonstrate how the biggest fashion houses currently can renew themselves. In part 2, I will continue unpacking the possibilities of some newer faces and such as Miguel Castro Freitas, Duran Lantink, Jack McCollough & Lazaro Hernandez; and other designers who have technically already debuted the first collection but will be showing for the first time in the womenswear context, which are Jonathan Anderson, and Glenn Marten.

² In 2021, Bottega, under its former creative director Daniel Lee, shut down the brand's social media and started communicating with press and customers via digital newsletter. However, Lee’s designs inspired a popular Instagram account, @newbottega, curated by artist @lauranycole, which led to Lee's era at Bottega called new Bottega. After Blazy’s debut at the house, fans of his work cheekily called Blazy’s Bottega new-new Bottega.