Kering has appointed British designer Martine Rose as creative director of Balenciaga, the French luxury group said on Friday, handing the Paris fashion house to a designer who already knows it from the inside.
Rose, 45, will start in the role on 16 November, succeeding Pierpaolo Piccioli, whose departure after less than 16 months in the job was announced on Thursday. Piccioli, a 25-year veteran of Valentino, had taken over in July 2025 after Demna moved to Gucci.
Rose founded her eponymous menswear label in London in 2007 and later spent three years as a menswear consultant at Balenciaga under Demna, who led the house from 2015 to 2025 and built its success on provocative communications and everyday fashion pushed to exaggerated proportions. Her appointment is a homecoming for a designer whose influence on contemporary fashion has long outstripped the scale of her own label.
The appointment is the third creative leadership shake-up in a month across Kering’s brands, as chief executive Luca de Meo tries to restore growth after a bruising three-year slowdown that hit Gucci, its biggest label, particularly hard. Kering has yet to name a successor to Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent, its second-biggest brand, after his resignation in October following a decade in charge.
“Balenciaga has always been a house of radical creativity, challenging conventions and redefining the boundaries of fashion. Martine Rose embodies this spirit with a fresh, fearless and deeply contemporary vision,” de Meo said in a statement.
Rose is only the second Black woman to take the creative helm at a major European fashion house, after Grace Wales Bonner became menswear designer at Hermes last year. Her credibility in menswear could also help revive a category that accounted for as much as half of Balenciaga’s revenue under Demna.
The appointment is de Meo’s first creative director hire since he took over as chief executive, and it marks a clear change of direction for Balenciaga after Piccioli’s brief, couture-led tenure.
Sources: Reuters — “Kering appoints Martine Rose creative director of Balenciaga” (https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/kering-appoints-martine-rose-creative-director-balenciaga-2026-11-06/); Business of Fashion — “Confirmed: Martine Rose Is Balenciaga’s New Creative Director” (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/confirmed-martine-rose-is-balenciagas-new-creative-director/).
