Kering has named Martine Rose the new creative director of Balenciaga. The appointment was announced Friday, November 6 — one day after the house confirmed the departure of Pierpaolo Piccioli — and Rose takes up the Paris-based role on November 16.
It is a historic appointment twice over. Rose is the first woman to lead Balenciaga creatively in the house's 109-year history, and the second Black woman to head a major European luxury house, after Grace Wales Bonner at Hermès. The 45-year-old British-Jamaican designer from Croydon founded her eponymous label in London in 2007, building it on subculture, music, nightlife, and the everyday wardrobes of the city's communities — a language that has put her clothes on Rihanna, Timothée Chalamet, and Dua Lipa.
This is also a return. Rose consulted on Balenciaga menswear from 2015 to 2018, under Demna, helping shape the oversized codes that defined that era. Her appointment reads as a recommitment to the rejuvenation Demna started — and it is the first creative-director hire under Kering CEO Luca de Meo, who has been reshuffling creative leadership across the group.
Piccioli's exit after roughly a year and a half made this one of the fastest turnovers at the top of a major house in recent memory. No date has been announced for Rose's first Balenciaga show. The next Paris Fashion Week, in March, is the likely stage.
Why we're watching: the designer behind the Martine Rose sets on our shelves — the Hockey Set and the Layered Track Set — now runs one of the most storied houses in fashion. That is the arc BAU-HOUSE has always bet on: the underground becoming the establishment, without losing the plot.
