Big names, little impact: When debuts fluctuate between hype and insignificance

Designer debuts were once a novelty, imbuing fashion weeks with a sense of excitement and newness that only the possibility of a brand’s shapeshifting identity could conjure. Nowadays, however, no fashion week goes by without at least a handful of debuts. And while they should be exciting, their sheer abundance – coupled with the fact that some designers never make it past their very first season – has turned them into a necessary evil in a world where big brands are struggling to find their footing in a changing luxury market.

At this rate, compiling a complete list of designer debuts feels almost futile – news of yet another creative change has become a daily occurrence. So much so that 2025 is shaping up to be a year with an unprecedented number of debutants. But what do brands actually hope to achieve with a new creative direction? What defines a truly successful transition? And, perhaps most crucially, what do these choices reveal about a brand’s future vision, aspirations, and identity?

Why is continuous creativity no longer fashionable?

Debuts have always been a crucial test for a brand and its heritage. However, while designers once had seasons – sometimes years – to prove their worth and build upon a brand’s legacy, often becoming intrinsically linked to it, those opportunities have become increasingly rare in fashion today. The era of long-standing creative directors is fading. Karl Lagerfeld’s infamous lifelong tenure at Chanel was always an anomaly, but it was once common for a creative director to spend a decade or more shaping a fashion house – Marc Jacobs defined Louis Vuitton from 1997 to 2014, while John Galliano showed no signs of stepping away from Dior during his 14-year reign of terror, right up until his abrupt dismissal.

That’s not to say long-standing creative directors no longer exist: Olivier Rousteing has become nearly synonymous with Balmain since taking the helm in 2011, and Nicolas Ghesquière seems poised to rival the length of Jacobs’ tenure at Louis Vuitton. Still, these cases are becoming increasingly rare.

This shift reflects a deeper change in the dynamic between creative directors and the luxury houses they lead. There is no denying that the relationship has always been complex: a visionary creative director can revolutionize a brand, generate buzz, cultural influence, and, ultimately, financial success. Today, however, the lines between designer and brand have become increasingly blurred.

Consider Gvasalia’s now-ended tenure at Balenciaga, Alessandro Michele’s near-miraculous transformation of Gucci, or Riccardo Tisci’s long-gone era at Givenchy, each completely reinvented the brand they worked under. That said, the real challenge arises when the hype fades and the designer – who has often become synonymous with the brand – departs, leaving behind a void that is nearly impossible to fill.

In some ways filling that void has become the bane of fashion’s existence as more and more designers leave their longtime creative homes in pursuit of new challenges, often taking their signature codes and design language with them. Meanwhile, those who replace them are often out before they’ve truly settled into their new position.

When designer legacy becomes a burden

Gucci, in particular, has become something of a case study – or rather, a cautionary tale – on the impact of a larger-than-life designer. Though no tale is quite as cautionary as Ludovic de Saint Sernins one season stint at Ann Demeulemeester – not that the brand could have predicted the commercial viability of Saint Sernin, who was gone before his collection ever hit the shop floors. Nonetheless, Gucci’s struggle to rebrand and redefine itself after the departure of a creative visionary underscores just how challenging it is to transition once a singular aesthetic has taken hold.

When the brand parted ways with Michele, who had more than doubled Gucci’s sales to over 10 billion euros during his seven-year tenure, the brand's hyper-growth began to slow. Impatient, as fashion tends to be, Gucci’s parent company Kering decided to course correct and initiated a complete creative overhaul. Out with the exuberance of Michele, and in with a more minimal, commercial vision.

But Kering's best laid plans never enchanted customers, nor did the moniker of a minimalist sit well with their chosen creative director Sabato De Sarno. After his debut collection for the brand, back in September 2023, the designer called criticism that his collection was purely commercial “bullshit” in an interview with Vogue. And somehow, he‘d stand correct, because the commercial success that a collection with commercial viability would imply, never materialised for him, or Gucci.

Now, the designer has been relegated to Gucci's annals as a stopgap between two heavy-weights in Michele and the Italian brand’s newest creative hopeful, Demna Gvaslia. And while Gvasalia's announcement hasn‘t only been met with positivity, it has already done something Gucci's first attempt at a creative reset under De Sarno failed to achieve: it polarised.

Gvasalia’s appointment is yet another course correction, and a telling one at that. While Gucci has previously produced star designers, transforming a young Tom Ford into a household name – though some would argue it was he who truly put Gucci back on the map – and elevating accessory designer Michele into one of fashion’s most recognizable maximalists, Gvasalia is set to become the brand’s first creative director with a pre-established track record in its more than century-long history.

Whether his proven success in the industry will bring Kering closer to its apparent goal of recasting itself as a timeless luxury brand – think Hermès – or whether those plans have already been abandoned in favour of whatever vision Gvasalia chooses to pursue remains to be seen. His debut, at a yet-to-be-confirmed time, may provide the answer. One thing, however, is already certain, his arrival won’t go unnoticed by the industry.

The same, surprisingly, can’t be said for every debut. As the industry is flooded with new visions and first collections, those that neither soar nor fail spectacularly often go unnoticed. Lorenzo Serafini and David Coma’s first collections for Alberta Ferretti and Blumarine respectively slipped under the radar – a sign of perfectly acceptable prettiness that neither raised many questions nor wowed. Safe to say though that they weren’t the only relatively quiet debuts as of late.

Even Sean McGirr's debut for Alexander McQueen – the first designer to take the helm without having learned from or worked under the label’s namesake – only raised a few eyebrows back when he presented his vision for the brand in March of last year. Despite the, if anything, slightly negative reviews, very little has been made of his continued efforts at the brand since. While the young talent seems to be finding his footing with each passing collection, industry chatter about his tenure has remained minimal. A possible sign that not all brands are keen – or able – to use the momentum of a debut for publicity, especially now that they no longer feel like a novelty.

But then, of course, there are the breakout stars, those whose debut feels like a much craved breath of fresh air. A rarity despite fashion, technically, being built on the idea of novelty. Once upon a time, the best example of this would have been Michele at Gucci, but most recently, it would be amiss not to highlight Chemena Kamali. Her Chloé debut not only cemented the brand firmly back in the ‘70s – albeit with a modern twist – but also underscored just how transformative a debut can be when the stars, a brand and a designer, align. But what made her debut more noticeable than others and what do all these recent debuts – some of which couldn’t have been more strategically different – say about the current state of fashion?

A debut with finesse?

The example Kamali set at Chloé long stood as the ideal blueprint for a fashion debut: an industry insider, largely unknown to the general public, with a strong record of high-profile design roles and a deep familiarity with the brand she was hired to lead. Not just through an outsider’s perspective, but from firsthand experience. Kamali was part of Chloé during some of its most defining years, first under Phoebe Philo, and later as design director during Clare Waight Keller’s tenure.

Since taking the helm at the storied French fashion house, Kamali has made only a handful of public appearances and given few interviews, but she seems to embody the spirit of what has often been called the “Chloé girl” – bohemian, feminine, and free-spirited. This alignment with the brand’s identity felt like the final flourish on a debut that appeared to come together seamlessly.

Visually, Kamali hasn’t reinvented the brand but has leaned into a sense of nostalgia and déjà vu, drawing on memories of past eras. She often references Karl Lagerfeld’s time at Chloé as a major influence, yet strong echoes of the 2000s and 2010s are unmistakable. Her revival of the iconic Paddington bag, first introduced in the spring/summer 2005 collection, is a clear nod to that period. Within a flurry of flounce, volume, and whimsy, Kamali has managed to transform nostalgia into newness, all while remaining true to the house’s established codes, heritage and a welcomed sense of familiarity.

From authentic continuity to predictable formulas

While this approach might seem like the obvious choice, indeed, a prerequisite, for any creative director stepping into a legacy brand – think Balenciaga or Dior –, recent history suggests otherwise. Increasingly, brands and designers have shown a tendency to transplant fully formed creative visions into new contexts. Many contemporary designers continue doing what they do best, often without adapting their aesthetic to fit the historical DNA of the house they’re leading. In this climate, Kamali’s approach, rooted in respect for Chloé’s past while gently reimagining it, feels both rare and refreshing.

Lately, for every debut rooted in authenticity and continuity, there are countless others where history is mined less as inspiration and more as justification – heritage repackaged to fit a narrative, archives scoured for receipts that connect a designer's vision to a brand. No matter how tenuous the link may be, as long as it ultimately serves the desired agenda.

What exactly that agenda is, however, seems to vary. In many cases, the appointment itself is designed to generate buzz before even a single sketch is revealed. Speculation, leaks, and hype create noise, eagerly amplified by social media. Whether this noise translates into long-term cultural relevance or commercial success is a different matter altogether. After all, while algorithms may reward disruption, in an increasingly volatile industry, perhaps it’s consistency, not novelty, that consumers are truly seeking. It is a tension – between the need for instant engagement and the desire for lasting impact – that, for many, lies at the heart of the current debate around designer debuts.

That, and the fact that most creative debuts these days feel increasingly predictable. The same names shuffled around: Gvasalia, Michele, Piccioli, are already established, needing no introduction. While their appointments ensure a built-in fanbase, they also guarantee a largely preordained aesthetic. Michele’s first show for Valentino, for example, felt eerily familiar. Not because of his nods to the house’s past, however tenuous those may be, but because, in essence, it looked like Michele. The vision hadn’t changed; only the name on the door had.

Gucci, in essence, had become Valentino. And even if Kering has stated that Demna’s proposal for Gucci will differ from what he has been creating at Balenciaga for the past a decade, this has yet to be proven.

Will the ‘musical chairs’ continue?

In a way, relying on the obvious makes sense. In times of financial uncertainty across the luxury sector, appointing a creative director with a clearly defined and recognizable vision is a safe bet. Brands know what they’re getting, no surprises, no real risk. Rather than embracing the unknown, many brands lean on formulas, assuming that what worked once will work again. In this context, however, a debut collection no longer offers the delights of a freely expressed vision or a uniquely shaped narrative. Instead, it becomes a stress test of market appeal.

This dynamic has transformed debuts from a moment of exploration and expression into flattened metrics of success, however that might be defined, because commercial viability – at least with consumers rather than buyers – can take up to three seasons to materialise. Designers today are rarely given that time, are seldom allowed to properly settle into their roles, with their positions constantly at risk of being upended – and without time most creative directors will continue to be reduced to footnotes in an endless relay of safe bets and missed opportunities. Or they may never get a chance to begin with.

The result? A growing sense of predictability, where new creative directors, and even the brands themselves, feel entirely interchangeable. There's a constant repetition, a dizzying game of musical chairs, with the same ten to fifteen names being shuffled from house to house. Without serious recalibration, reassertion, and rediscovery of identity on the part of the brands, this cycle is unlikely to end anytime soon – even as most vacant creative director roles slowly, but steadily have been filled after months of upheaval.