Who will be the next creative director at Chanel after Virginie Viard?

To put all the hysteria in context, and to help us understand why the vacancy at Chanel is so important, we need to know what the stakes are: Literally, billions of dollars. The Wertheimer brothers, Alain, 75, and Gerard, 72, the mysterious majority owners of Chanel, are significantly enriched by the storied brand’s performance, of which the creative director’s role is key. For example, during the period of Viard’s tenure at Chanel, the Wertheimers will have banked in US$12.4 billion (S$16.77 billion) in payouts from the brand’s earnings over the past three years.

Virginie Viard, 63, has served as the creative director of Chanel from 2019 to the present day, five years in which the luxury industry had suffered faltering demand. However, Chanel bucked the trend robustly, and is among the companies that have more than weathered the downturn in sales – revenues rose 16 per cent last year to almost US$20 billion.

Given these staggering figures, it is little wonder that the fashion world was taken by surprise with the news of Viard stepping down from Chanel – so much money is at stake. And as top jobs go, this vacancy at Chanel is the cherry on top of the cake of fashion jobs: The plumpest starring role, at the most rarefied of couture houses, in the white-hot pinnacle of the fashion universe. Could a fashion girlie want anything more?

Viard, who succeeded the legendary Karl Lagerfeld after his passing in 2019 (he had a lifelong contract with Chanel – something unheard of in this era!), had reviews which were polite, and restrained. While she received accolades for her highly coveted handbags and prosaic practicality, most online criticism raised concerns about the lack of creative leadership and progressive designs in her collections. Viard gave a ponderous athleticism, and uncovered the midriff a la Britney Spears – when dazzle was expected. The controversy surrounding her departure (Is she ill? Was it a HR issue? Had they finally had enough?) highlights the intense pressure that creative directors face in the fashion industry, where success is measured by the ability to balance commercial as well as aesthetic concerns – Lagerfeld’s mastery of every aspect of the role (it could be argued that Lagerfeld invented the role of designer as God) just made Viard’s work much more challenging because the contrast in style was immediate – and stark. 

As rumours swirl about potential candidates to replace Viard, forerunners of the game consistently mentioned are those that Lagerfeld had previously named at various points of his career as his Chosen One. We have alternatives. Here we give you our unusual ideas on who should be fashion’s next top designer.

USUAL SUSPECT 1: HAIDER ACKERMANN

In 2010, Lagerfeld told Numero magazine that he wanted Haider Ackermann for Chanel. Known for his avant-garde eponymous label (2001 - 2018), innovative tailoring, he was creative director at Berluti in 2016, for two years, guest-designed one couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier in 2023, and famously dressed Timothee Chalamet in the sparkly, lipstick red backless halter top at Cannes in 2022.

HOW LIKELY IS HE TO GO TO CHANEL?

Unlikely to nil – Ackermann had just signed up with Canada Goose as its first creative director, announced in May.

UNUSUAL SUSPECT 1: JOHN GALLIANO

Why not serve up an absolute uproar by giving the most prestigious of appointments to John Galliano, who is generally acknowledged to be an unparalleled fashion genius? His once-in-a-lifetime talent aside, he would serve up a fashion uproar like no other. One need only remember the Maison Margiela Artisanal collection that he presented in January to see how he could blow up the dainty and the staid at Chanel – just like what Lagerfeld did when he remade Chanel in the 1980s. Galliano’s fashion skill (he can create an outfit from sketch to shipping, including the most technical aspects like pattern-making and draping,) aesthetic eye (a refined sense honed from study of history, culture and art,) couture house experience (15 years at Dior is not for nothing,) makes him the perfect nominee. 

HOW LIKELY IS HE TO GO TO CHANEL?

More likely than Ackermann, everything considered. The uproar of this appointment itself would break the internet.

USUAL SUSPECT 2: SIMON PORTE JACQUEMUS

The firm favourite of the young ones for the likeliest candidate is Simon Porte Jacquemus. The young French designer, whose eponymous brand has gained a cult following for playful and vibrant designs, represents a freewheeling Gen Z approach to fashion. Jacquemus’s ability to capture the zeitgeist is secondary to his ability to capture hearts – he was one of Lagerfeld’s pets (Lagerfeld had found Jacquemus “pretty”). Never underestimate how far looks can take you in fashion: He was “discovered” whilst working as a sales associate at Comme Des Garcons, and launched his eponymous label in 2010, aged 20.

HOW LIKELY IS HE TO GO TO CHANEL?

Unlikely, even though he would attract the TikTok demographic; The Wertheimers are unlikely to fall for his furry charm.

UNUSUAL SUSPECT 2: LADY AMANDA HARLECH

And why not? The British aristocrat, long-time Lagerfeld muse (she was also muse to Galliano) and stylist, was employed by Lagerfeld as a collaborator from 2000 onwards till the end of his life. She kept a suite of rooms at the Ritz Paris, so that she could attend to Lagerfeld at Rue Cambon, across the street. Harlech, 65, worked beside Lagerfeld at all times, and was at all his couture fittings, improving each look with a suggestion, or a sigh. He regarded her as one of his closest advisers, almost a daughter. Harlech knows everything there is to know about Chanel. So close was she to the late legend that she was just one of seven people named in his will. The Oxford-educated, best-dressed alumni, and fashion icon could bring out the tweedy English side of Chanel (Coco was a big Anglophile), regal refinement and cerebral chic, which seems to have been lost in the recent melee.  

HOW LIKELY IS SHE TO GO TO CHANEL?

Less likely than even Jacquemus; Harlech is too outside of the box for a conservative house like Chanel.

USUAL SUSPECT 3: JEREMY SCOTT

Jeremy Scott, former creative director of Moschino of a decade (2013 – 2023), also had Lagerfeld’s public avowal. Lagerfeld once told Le Monde magazine that Scott was the only designer who could take over Chanel after him, but the Maestro is known to be as archly facetious as a 17th century French coquette, and as given to dropping richly ironical bon mots. For Scott is a Kansas-born Midwesterner whose designs look like the sartorial equivalent of memes, and hiring Scott would be like taking a chainsaw to the couture house.

HOW LIKELY IS HE TO GO TO CHANEL?

Slight possibility, as Scott is currently without contract. However, his long-running collaborations, which begot winged trainers at Adidas Originals, do not inspire visions of haute couture.

UNUSUAL SUSPECT 3: RICK OWENS

If one must take an American chainsaw to hack away the fusty at Chanel, we suggest the vastly more talented Rick Owens instead. His darkly gothic, dystopian grunge aesthetic could turn the Chanel codes round into a new cool Chanel, androgynous, deconstructed, pagoda-shouldered and subversively-chic. Growing his eponymous label from 1994 into a globally renowned fashion business today, Owens has built his reputation largely around his signature leather looks, and a forever-punk attitude. Born in Porterville, California, and relocated to Paris in 2002, Owens has since become one of the most influential designers of our times. Lagerfeld himself has been known to wear Owens’s designs and has photographed Owens’s clothes for editorial shoots.

HOW LIKELY IS HE TO GO TO CHANEL?

Who wouldn’t want a leather Chanel jacket with bicycle seat shoulders? Totally unlikely but wouldn’t it be completely new?

THE USUAL SUSPECT 4: HEDI SLIMANE

This spring, whispers of contract renegotiations between Slimane, 56, yet still Celine’s golden “boy”, and parent company LVMH began circulating. Slimane’s Midas touch is well known. He had “transformed” various brands successfully, in succession: At Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche (1997 – 2000), Dior Homme (2000 – 2007) and Saint Laurent (2012–2016). Slimane is credited with revolutionising men’s fashion with ultra-slim, androgynous designs and Lagerfeld famously declared that Slimane’s designs motivated him to lose some seven stone in blubber, so that he could fit into Dior Homme suits. In January 2018, Slimane was named the artistic, creative, and image director of Celine, where he, once again, transformed the brand, to great commercial success.

HOW LIKELY IS HE TO GO TO CHANEL?

In general consensus, Slimane is the leading contender for the Chanel role. Rumours are circulating about Slimane’s impending departure from Celine; he had Lagerfeld’s seal of approval – you simply don’t lose seven stone for just anybody. But most importantly, Slimane has clocked the design miles and acquired the scope to head all the product categories that Chanel has.

UNUSUAL SUSPECT 4: PIER PAOLO PICCIOLI 

Piccioli’s own stepping down from Valentino in March, had caused a round of dramatic outcry, and it would justify his talents to go to a house as rich in resources as Chanel. Piccioli’s creativity, positive energy, and sense of fun, have made him a beloved and respected  personality in the industry. And at Chanel, he could continue to evolve his essentially classic aesthetics and create more beautiful silhouettes, graceful proportions, gorgeous colour blocks (Piccioli’s colour sense is rivalled only by Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Lacroix) with the cool, considered and adult glamour that is rare in fashion today – something that would refresh Chanel. No stranger to haute couture (Piccioli had helmed Valentino since 2016), think how swooningly beautiful his couture will be!

HOW LIKELY IS HE TO GO TO CHANEL?

A fighting chance. Piccioli is currently without contract, which is a betrayal of his colossal talent. He would bring a thinking modernity to the brand and return spectacle to Chanel. And isn’t that what we all want?