Creative Directors Who Reinvented Old Fashion Houses

Miuccia Prada at Prada, 1978 onwards Prada was a leather-goods firm founded by her grandfather in 1913 when Miuccia Prada took it over in 1978. Her first real hit, in 1985, was a line of black, finely woven nylon handbags: an industrial fabric sold at luxury prices, and the start of the house's knowingly plain, intellectual style. Women's ready-to-wear followed in 1989 and Miu Miu in 1992. This is the rare revival led from inside the family, and it has lasted longer than any other here. Since 2020 she has shared the creative role with Raf Simons.

Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, 1983–2019 The benchmark for how long a reinvention can hold. When Lagerfeld took over in 1983, Chanel was regarded as a near-dead brand more than a decade after its founder's death. He treated Coco Chanel's codes as material to play with rather than relics: the interlocking CC became a pattern, shoulders were padded, skirts shortened, heels raised, and the jewellery and bags scaled up. The revamped ready-to-wear is what made the house a huge commercial success again. He stayed until his death in February 2019, running Fendi's fur and fashion in parallel for the whole time.

Tom Ford at Gucci, 1994–2004 Gucci had been almost insolvent when Ford joined as its women's ready-to-wear designer in 1990. Promoted to creative director in 1994, he brought in velvet hipsters, skinny satin shirts and metallic patent boots, and his 1995 collection of white dresses with provocative cut-outs was an instant hit. He hired Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino for the advertising, and the sex appeal was the strategy. Sales rose 90% between 1995 and 1996. He left in April 2004 after failing to agree with the new owner over control of the group, which by then was valued at $10 billion. Most later turnarounds are measured against this one.

John Galliano at Christian Dior, 1996–2011 LVMH moved Galliano to Dior in October 1996, replacing Gianfranco Ferré, and the house of the New Look became theatrical again. His couture and ready-to-wear won critical acclaim, and the Saddle bag, which debuted in the Spring/Summer 2000 collection, became one of the most popular handbags of its time. It is also the clearest case of a revival ending in disgrace. After antisemitic remarks in a Paris bar in February 2011, Dior began proceedings to dismiss him on 1 March. He later rebuilt his reputation at Maison Margiela from 2014 to 2024.

Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, 1997–2013 Vuitton was a luggage house with no clothing at all until Jacobs arrived in 1997 and created its first ready-to-wear line. His bigger change was cultural. Collaborations with Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince and Kanye West put graffiti, cartoons and art-world wit onto the monogram and made a staid logo feel like news each season. The artist collaboration as a luxury sales tool owes much to this run. He left in October 2013, after the Spring/Summer 2014 show, to concentrate on his own label.

Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga, 1997–2012 Balenciaga had enjoyed little success since the 1970s when a 25-year-old Ghesquière, who had been designing licensed suits and funeral clothes for Japan, became the surprise choice to lead it in 1997. He made Cristóbal Balenciaga's sculptural legacy feel futuristic and turned the label into a critically praised house again. The money came from accessories: the slouchy Lariat bag, with braided handles and dangling zip pulls, was his biggest commercial hit. Read this one for how a forgotten couture name can be rebuilt from a single bag upwards. He left in November 2012, to general astonishment, and went on to Louis Vuitton womenswear.

Alber Elbaz at Lanvin, 2001–2015 Elbaz gave Jeanne Lanvin's old house soft, wearable glamour: silk cocktail dresses and feminine pieces in a 'classic with a twist' spirit that, in the trade press's view, made it one of the top houses in Paris. Revenue rose 60% in the two years from 2005 to 2007. The ending is the cautionary part, and the reason this tenure belongs here. He was let go in October 2015 after disagreements with the main shareholder, and Lanvin's sales declined afterwards: a house that had become one designer's vision struggled once he was gone. He died of Covid-19 in April 2021.

Christopher Bailey at Burberry, 2001–2018 Bailey joined as creative director in May 2001, just as the Burberry check was becoming tied to football casual culture and counterfeits, to the point that some venues banned it. Working with Angela Ahrendts, chief executive from 2006, he turned that reputation around and made the trench coat and British heritage the centre of the brand again. Sales passed £2 billion during her tenure. Bailey then became chief executive himself, from 2014 to November 2017, while also serving as chief creative officer, and had left entirely by the end of 2018. This is the model for fixing an image problem with design and business discipline working together.

Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, 2005–2017 Tisci took charge of Givenchy's couture, ready-to-wear and accessories in 2005 and made Hubert de Givenchy's polished house darker, more romantic and far more streetwise, with gothic runway drama and graphic printed sweatshirts that crossed into celebrity wardrobes. The numbers are what earn it a place: Givenchy's turnover rose six-fold over his twelve years. His follow-up as chief creative officer at Burberry, from 2018 to 2022, never produced a comparable turn, a useful reminder that a formula rarely travels from one house to another.

Phoebe Philo at Céline, 2008–2018 LVMH hired Philo in 2008, and her debut Céline collection followed the next year. She turned a quiet label into the reference point for women who wanted serious, minimal clothes without logos, and the Trapeze and Luggage totes became phenomenally successful bags. She left after the Pre-Fall 2018 collection, and the devotion she built outlasted her tenure: her fans spent years asking for her return, and her own label finally launched in October 2023. Few reinventions have left such a strong afterlife, even though the house itself was taken in a very different direction by her successor.

Olivier Rousteing at Balmain, 2011–2025 Rousteing was 25 when he replaced Christophe Decarnin in April 2011, and he turned Pierre Balmain's house into a brand of the social media age: sharp-shouldered, heavily embellished clothes worn by a crowd of famous fans. Balmain became the first French label to pass one million Instagram followers, and menswear grew to around 40% of its revenue. It is the case study in visibility as a revival tool. He announced his departure on 5 November 2025 after 14 years, and in July 2026 he was named creative director of Rabanne.

Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent, 2012–2016 Controversial from the first day. Slimane dropped 'Yves' from the ready-to-wear label, renaming it Saint Laurent after the original Rive Gauche line, moved the design studio to Los Angeles and swapped bourgeois polish for skinny rock-and-roll tailoring. A Paris boutique sold shirts mocking the change. Customers sided with him: within three years the house had more than doubled its sales. He announced a revival of couture in 2015 and left in 2016, handing over to Anthony Vaccarello. This tenure shows that a reinvention can work commercially while much of the press dislikes it.

Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, 2013–2025 Loewe was a respected Spanish leather house with little fashion profile when LVMH named Anderson creative director in September 2013. He built the reinvention on craft: the origami-like Puzzle bag, launched in the mid-2010s, became a modern icon, while the runway turned playful and surreal. Published estimates put the house's revenue above €1 billion by 2024, from a few hundred million when he started. Unusually, he left at the top rather than on the way down, stepping down on 17 March 2025 after 11 years. He now leads Dior.

Stuart Vevers at Coach, 2013 onwards The slow burn. Vevers left Loewe for Coach in 2013, succeeding Reed Krakoff, and spent years reworking the American leather brand around its own archive, with the Tabby bag becoming the standout. He won the CFDA Accessory Designer of the Year award for Coach in 2017, but the commercial payoff came much later. In the fiscal third quarter of 2026, Coach's revenue grew 29% at constant currency, and Gen Z made up more than a third of the new customers its parent company Tapestry gained. For anyone who assumes a revival must happen in the first two seasons, this is the counter-example.

Alessandro Michele at Gucci, 2015–2022 Michele had worked quietly inside Gucci since 2002 when, in January 2015, he was asked to step up as sales were deflating. His maximalist, gender-fluid, vintage-shop romanticism and new products such as the Dionysus bag made Gucci the defining look of the late 2010s, and revenue rose from under €4 billion to nearly €10 billion. Then it faded. Growth slowed from 2019, tensions with management grew, and he left in November 2022. Gucci's revenue fell to €7.65 billion by 2024 under his successor. He has led Valentino since March 2024.

Demna at Balenciaga, 2015–2025 Demna arrived in 2015, succeeding Alexander Wang, and pushed Balenciaga into oversized outerwear, hoodies, broad-shouldered suits and bulky trainers: deliberately awkward clothes that sold in huge numbers. Over his decade, revenue grew from an estimated $390 million to close to $2 billion. The damage came in 2022, when a campaign showing children holding teddy bears in BDSM gear caused an outcry; he apologised, calling it the wrong idea and a bad decision. He moved to Gucci in 2025, where his first runway collection showed in February 2026 and it is too early to judge.

Daniel Lee at Bottega Veneta, 2018–2021 The fastest burn here. Kering appointed the little-known Lee in June 2018, and his Pouch clutch became the fastest-selling bag in Bottega Veneta's history, putting the house's woven-leather craft back at the centre of fashion. In 2019 he won four Fashion Awards, including Brand of the Year and Designer of the Year. Then, in November 2021, he and the house announced a joint decision to part after barely three years. The lesson for anyone weighing a hot hire: momentum can arrive in a season and leave just as quickly. He has led Burberry since 2022.

Hedi Slimane at Celine, 2018–2024 Slimane's second reinvention was a deliberate break with Phoebe Philo's minimalism. Announced in January 2018, he dropped the accent to make the name Celine and brought his narrow, rock-inflected silhouette with him, unveiled in a purpose-built black pavilion beside Les Invalides that September. It upset many of Philo's devoted customers. The house grew regardless: Celine has said its revenue multiplied about two and a half times after his arrival. He exited in October 2024. Read alongside his Saint Laurent years, it shows a designer whose formula worked twice, at the cost of erasing what came before.

Glenn Martens at Diesel, 2020–2026 Proof that a reinvention does not need a Paris couture name. Diesel was a denim brand people associated with an earlier decade when Martens, already running Y/Project, became its creative director in October 2020, having worked with it on an experimental capsule in 2018. He made the denim distressed, sexy and conceptual again and gave the brand a young, internet-literate following. Diesel's owner, OTB, does not publish the brand's sales, but it named Diesel's progress as a key driver of its growth in 2021. Martens left after showing the Spring/Summer 2027 collection in Milan in September 2026 and remains at Maison Margiela.

Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, 2025 onwards Too early to call, too significant to leave out. Blazy succeeded Virginie Viard in 2025, and his first collection, Spring/Summer 2026, reached stores in March 2026, when videos of shoppers streaming into Chanel boutiques spread widely. He has loosened the codes with denim, humour, pop references and everyday versions of the classics, and drawn new customers, including men buying the ready-to-wear. Chanel's revenue rose only about 2% in 2025, and the company has said growth continued into 2026. Whether this becomes a lasting reinvention or a strong first year is the question this entry will be judged on.