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Fashion’s constant creative director turnover is giving us all whiplash. It seems like there’s a new creative director being hired every week, with four appointments and six exits announced in the past three months alone.
This constant changing of the guard is exciting, but also exhausting. And the elephant in the room is still the lack of diversity among new appointments. Across the nine debuts lined up so far for 2025, three are from female designers (Veronica Leoni at Calvin Klein, Sarah Burton at Givenchy and Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta), and one from a person of colour (Haider Ackermann, who is Colombian, at Tom Ford).
We analysed the diversity of the creative leaders of 35 brands — the top 30 luxury brands in the Vogue Business Index and five additional new designer appointments (Lanvin, Blumarine, Tom Ford Fashion, Dries Van Noten and Calvin Klein). Among this group of 35, 10 positions are held by women: Maria Grazia Chiuri (Dior), Burton (Givenchy), Trotter (Bottega Veneta), Donatella Versace (Versace), Sandra Choi (Jimmy Choo), Leoni (Calvin Klein), Miuccia Prada (Prada and Miu Miu), Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski (Hermès), Stella McCartney (eponymous brand) and Chemena Kamali (Chloé). There are three men of colour: Pharrell Williams (Louis Vuitton), Maximilian Davis (Ferragamo) and Ackermann (Tom Ford), while only one (Choi) is a woman of colour.
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“I call it white man musical chairs,” says London-based stylist, fashion director and consultant Jeanie Annan-Lewin. “If you’ve got a bunch of people designing out of the same narrow male gaze, we’re just pushing the same message over and over again. There are so many talented people out there who don’t get any visibility because everybody’s too stuck in their ways or scared or busy wanting to cut a check.”
A roller coaster for diverse hiring
There are three reasons for the ongoing lack of diversity among creative director appointments. Firstly, it’s systemic. Secondly, the luxury fashion market is still in the midst of a slowdown, so executives are wary of taking what some might perceive as a ‘risk’ with their hiring strategies. Thirdly, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has become a seriously polemic topic. The discourse behind President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders in the US points to a perception that people of colour are being hired for the sake of diversity rather than merit.
This backlash is felt globally, says Daniel Peters, founder of diversity consultancy Fashion Minority Report. “Senior leaders feel they’re going to alienate their customers and their teams. But you’re also alienating a segment of customers by not continuing to push forward,” he says.
“The change in the political climate means everyone’s worried about investment and where the money’s coming from, so we’re all going to fall in line with the new Trump era, which I think is going to drastically affect self-expression,” says Annan-Lewin.
The past decade has been a roller coaster for the state of diversity in the luxury fashion industry. The streetwear era of the 2010s (including the pivotal appointment of the late Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton) was a significant mainstream acknowledgement of culture outside of the white West’s ideals. But the groundwork didn’t stick, says fashion theorist Rian Phin. “It makes me sad that the streetwear era oriented itself around the hype of hiring Black designers rather than just hiring talented Black designers or designers of colour more generally. It could have ushered in an avenue of really seeing the quality of talent that exists rather than considering diversity as a hype,” she says.
Between 2021 and 2023, a number of creative director positions went to young buzzy names, who were tapped with the intention of driving a brand turnaround and reviving a long-standing label (such as GmbH’s Serhat Isik and Benjamin Huseby at Trussardi, Rhuigi Villaseñor at Bally and Ludovic de Saint Sernin at Ann Demeulemeester). Many of these designers represented youth culture or queer culture, among other diverse cultures, so there tended to be more diversity among these appointments. But many of those hires were short-lived, which experts at the time put down to the designer being a bad fit to begin with or brands not allowing young talent enough time to learn the ropes.
Then came the era of hiring skilled number twos within design teams (like Matthieu Blazy’s appointment at Bottega Veneta, Sabato De Sarno’s appointment at Gucci or Peter Hawkings at Tom Ford Fashion). Design teams tend to lack diversity, and it often takes privilege to climb the ranks. Critics began to note that most of the hires during this time were white men of a similar age. In some cases, these hires worked out — look at Blazy’s swift succession to Chanel — but in other cases, critics felt the collections lacked originality, with some linking that to the lack of diversity.
Now, we’re in the era of the old guard. Brands are hiring seasoned creative directors who have proved their worth, like Alessandro Michele at Valentino, with the hopes of surviving the market downturn. While many are looking forward to what these talented creatives do at the helm of storied fashion houses, the underlying feeling is that progress towards a more diverse, inclusive industry has stalled. It takes time to build up a pipeline of more diverse top talent, but the current wave of hiring reinforces the message that you have to be from a certain background to succeed in fashion.
Holding the industry back
Experts say playing it safe might, in fact, be a risky strategy in the long run. “It’s not about a DEI policy, it’s about being part of culture — a world in which people want community, they want to be part of something meaningful,” says Karen Harvey, founder and CEO of Karen Harvey Consulting, who has recruited some of the top names in the industry (including Leoni at CK). “If we want this industry to get back to connecting with consumers, the executives need to not play it so safe and really lean into creativity.”
In a survey of almost 1,000 consumers, Vogue Business found that respondents felt luxury has lost its value: 77 per cent agree that luxury fashion costs more than it did a year ago, but there’s also a perception that quality, ethics and creativity have declined. Among respondents, 37 per cent said they shop less for luxury than they did a year prior.
“So many companies are already flopping and flailing and having such trouble reaching their goals. Why not consider an outside perspective as a possible resolution, and also consider that a lot of the clothes are falling flat when they’re going for the safer option?” says Phin. “When a designer is willing to take the risk to disrupt the homogeneity of the traditional fashion industry, people respond really well to that,” she adds, referring to designers like Martine Rose and Grace Wales Bonner.
Even if customers are not asking for diversity in such simple terms, there’s a deep desire for newness, storytelling, community and specialness — all of which require the people working in creative teams to have a unique perspective. Diversity of background and thought is how brands can foster those unique viewpoints. “It’s about curation through the lens of somebody who has a different perspective — that storytelling is what encourages customers to buy,” says Peters.
Not to mention, the world’s wealth dynamics are shifting: young women are out-earning the men of their generation, and luxury’s growth is driven by global markets like China, Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East. “Women and people of colour have the ability to impact the outcome of a brand’s destiny,” says Harvey. “Women control the destiny of brands with their growing earning power and have the potential to impact brands whether they have a DEI policy or not. We also need to move into these markets with people who are recognisable to these consumers across the world.” Despite that, Harvey says that in her research she has only found a “tiny” percentage of people of colour helming the creative visions of brands, adding that the industry tends to not “cast the net wide enough”.
“It’s really weird that we talk about women’s fashion but there are hardly any women designing it. If you go to a fashion party or a show, all you hear is people playing music from people of colour, or if a brand collaborates with rappers or NFL players their sales go up. But where are all the creative directors of colour?” adds Annan-Lewin. “I want brands to take some risks and put their money where their mouth is, because they’re already investing in white men, some of whom aren’t moving the needle whatsoever and yet they fail upwards.”
Some executives may be concerned that a designer from an underrepresented background can only create work that references their roots, and that this will be too niche to resonate with a global luxury audience. Phin disagrees, referring to Japanese designers like Yohji Yamamoto who “don’t always represent Japanese culture so overtly, but they have such a distinct vision that shines through”. “When people have a different background or experience, they can often translate that through design in a way that’s not so literal,” she says.
Harvey says truly moving the needle starts with the diversity and decision-making processes of the executive teams. “We have to put some of the onus on the executives and hold them accountable. When creative directors are hired, they’re hired by CEOs,” she says. “We’ve had a changing of the guard of creative directors but also of executives — and with all that change that’s going on, what are the commitments those executives are making?”
The industry needs more executives with a vision of how brands can innovate and stay relevant to consumers, she says. “We live in a very diverse world and the makeup of consumers is diverse. We’re in this era of constant change, and I think companies really need to put their values and their consumers at the centre.”
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Why are so many creative directors white men?
