No season in recent memory has seen as many significant creative director changes as SS26. The concentration of debuts is historically unusual — and the reason for it matters. The brands making these changes are not executing routine transitions. They\’re responding to a specific inflection point in luxury: the post-pandemic growth that sustained every major house is moderating, younger consumers are forming new relationships with fashion that don\’t map neatly onto legacy brand identities, and the creative voice that defined a previous era is no longer sufficient.
What follows is a guide to who arrived, what they did, and what it means — with a link to one key piece from each debut collection that\’s available now.
Contents
- 1 The Major Moves
- 1.1 1. Jonathan Anderson — Dior
- 1.2 2. Matthieu Blazy — Chanel
- 1.3 3. Glenn Martens — Maison Margiela
- 1.4 4. Haider Ackermann — Tom Ford
- 1.5 5. Simone Bellotti — Bottega Veneta
- 1.6 6. Peter Do — Helmut Lang
- 1.7 7. Chemena Kamali — Chloé
- 1.8 8. Sarah Burton — Givenchy
- 1.9 9. Julian Klausner — Dries Van Noten
- 1.10 10. Fabio Zambernardi — Prada
- 1.11 11. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez — Proenza Schouler (continued)
- 1.12 12. Eli Russell Linnetz — Valentino
- 1.13 13. Giovanni Morelli — Etro
- 1.14 14. Rebecca Vallance — Oscar de la Renta
- 1.15 15. Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant — Courrèges (continued)
- 2 What This Season Tells Us
The Major Moves
1. Jonathan Anderson — Dior
The most significant appointment. Anderson\’s Loewe tenure produced some of the most critically important work in luxury fashion in the past decade. His first Dior collection was a negotiation between his intellectual framework and the house\’s commercial responsibilities — more accessible in its accessories, more conceptually ambitious in its ready-to-wear. Watch this closely.
Shop current Dior at Mytheresa
2. Matthieu Blazy — Chanel
Blazy built Bottega Veneta into the most critically acclaimed luxury house of its generation. At Chanel, he has a different challenge: the world\’s most recognized fashion brand, with a legacy that is simultaneously an asset and a constraint. His debut recontextualised the Chanel codes — the tweed, the camellia, the kitten heel — without dismantling them.
Shop current Chanel at Net-a-Porter
3. Glenn Martens — Maison Margiela
Martens built a devoted following at Y/Project for his conceptual deconstruction of classical menswear. At Margiela — the house that invented deconstruction as a luxury language — the question was whether he could add to the Galliano legacy rather than simply sustaining it. His debut was technically accomplished and atmospherically precise.
Shop Margiela at Ssense
4. Haider Ackermann — Tom Ford
A house without a clear creative identity after Tom Ford\’s departure found something unexpected in Ackermann — a designer known for romantic, slightly dark sensibility who brought exactly the right kind of considered sexuality to the brand. The debut was striking.
Shop Tom Ford at Sephora
5. Simone Bellotti — Bottega Veneta
Following Blazy, Bellotti (Bottega Veneta\’s head of menswear under Blazy) had to define what comes after a defining era. His womenswear debut continued the intrecciato vocabulary while introducing a softer silhouette language.
Shop Bottega Veneta at Net-a-Porter
6. Peter Do — Helmut Lang
Helmut Lang the brand has been searching for meaning since its founder sold his stake in 2004. Peter Do — who built his own brand on a precisely engineered minimalism that echoes Lang\’s original ethos — is the most logical creative choice the brand has made in two decades.
Shop Helmut Lang at Ssense
7. Chemena Kamali — Chloé
Kamali, a long-term Chloé veteran, returned to the brand as creative director after Gabriela Hearst\’s departure. Her debut reactivated Chloé\’s bohemian feminine codes with genuine enthusiasm — it looked like a designer who had been waiting a long time to do exactly this.
Shop Chloé at Mytheresa
8. Sarah Burton — Givenchy
Burton built Alexander McQueen\’s ready-to-wear empire after McQueen\’s death and left on her own terms after thirteen years. At Givenchy, she inherits a house that has been directionless for longer than it should have been. Her debut was measured and technically accomplished.
Shop Givenchy at Net-a-Porter
9. Julian Klausner — Dries Van Noten
Van Noten\’s retirement after more than three decades was one of the significant cultural moments of last year. Klausner, a former Van Noten collaborator, had to satisfy the house\’s intensely loyal customer base while establishing his own voice. His debut did both, carefully.
Shop Dries Van Noten at Mytheresa
10. Fabio Zambernardi — Prada
Not a complete handover — Miuccia Prada remains co-creative director — but Zambernardi\’s elevated role at Prada has meaningfully shaped the recent collections. The influence is visible in the more architectural approach to surface and texture.
Shop Prada at Mytheresa
11. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez — Proenza Schouler (continued)
Not a debut, but a reinvention: the Proenza Schouler duo reclaimed the brand\’s identity after a period of commercial repositioning. The SS26 collection was the most critically received in a decade.
Shop Proenza Schouler at Ssense
12. Eli Russell Linnetz — Valentino
Linnetz, formerly known for the ERL brand and his work with Kanye West, brought a radically different sensibility to the most classical of Italian houses. The debut divided opinion — which is exactly what Valentino needed.
Shop Valentino at Mytheresa
13. Giovanni Morelli — Etro
Etro\’s paisley-and-print identity has been consistent for decades. Morelli has introduced more structural elements while preserving the house\’s commitment to pattern — an evolution rather than a disruption.
Shop Etro at Net-a-Porter
14. Rebecca Vallance — Oscar de la Renta
The Australian designer brings a pragmatic elegance to the most American of luxury houses. Her debut was commercially intelligent and creatively credible.
Shop Oscar de la Renta at Mytheresa
15. Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant — Courrèges (continued)
Not technically a debut but worth inclusion: their continued development of Courrèges as a contemporary luxury brand has reached a point of genuine cultural relevance that wasn\’t there three years ago.
Shop Courrèges at Ssense
What This Season Tells Us
The concentration of talent in transition reflects something real about where fashion is: the luxury market is undergoing a recalibration, and the brands making the most interesting appointments are those that understand the next decade will require a different kind of creative vision than the last one.
What those creative visions actually produce — commercially and culturally — will become clear over the next two to three seasons.
*Nia Johnson is Jebae\’s Culture & Industry Writer, based in London.*
