Nothing Is Happening at Chanel & It's All Anyone Can Talk About
In early June, Virginie Viard stepped down from her role as Chanel's artistic director. Five months later, nothing has happened. And it’s all anyone can talk about.
Over the past few months, an explosion of industry gossip has whispered — shouted, really — about the talent whom Chanel may or may not be hiring as its new creative or artistic director. It’s a veritable who’s-who of luxury designers, absolutely none of whom have been confirmed by Chanel (Highsnobiety has reached out for comment).
These include safe bets like Hedi Slimane, who curiously exited his profitable prior gig at CELINE in early October. Slimane was so adored by former Chanel maven Karl Lagerfeld that Lagerfeld famously subjected himself to a “punishing” diet to simply fit into Slimane’s Dior menswear.
Also reportedly in the mix are Margiela overseer John Galliano and Schiaparelli superstar Daniel Roseberry, who’ve both proven themselves as masters of the sort of viral stunt that was a signature of Lagerfeld’s Chanel.
Then there are the less obvious selections, sometimes undermined almost as quickly as they’re voiced. Consider the designers Sarah Burton and Haider Ackermann, briefly bandied about until they accepted high-profile gigs at Givenchy (Burton) and Tom Ford (Ackermann, who’s also at Canada Goose).
And then Grace Wales Bonner has apparently surfaced as a possibility, as the undersung British talent often does. So too has Phoebe Philo, despite launching her own seemingly popular line in late 2023.
How about Matthieu Blazy, who has become a “top contender” for Chanel despite also enjoying a wildly successful tenure at Bottega Veneta?
Don’t think that he’s the only one, either — mere months ago, longtime Lagerfeld admirer Simon Porte Jacquemus was supposedly Chanel execs’ favorite.
The sheer volume and voracity of rumors has only served to shuffle even the likeliest candidates into a massive pile of possibilities. Marc Jacobs, red-hot and ever so relevant, not so subtly hinted at his own Chanel aspirations in an October interview.
Simultaneously, fun-loving designer Jeremy Scott has enjoyed a suspicious amount of free time since leaving Moschino in early 2023 — this is the man whom Lagerfeld himself once cited as the “only” reasonable successor at Chanel.
Both men would be worthy fits and make sense as the commercial and conceptual heirs to Lagerfeld’s throne. But amidst a deluge of other high-profile possibilities, how could any one person feel especially potent?
In the absence of fact, speculation thrives. Remember the long wait for Louis Vuitton to appoint its menswear creative director?
About three billion thinkpieces attempted to fill the void, predicting potential successors and justifying (or debunking) rumors.
And yet, not a single person guessed Pharrell. Just goes to show that this sort of gossip is at most, as one person on Twitter put it, “draft pick announcements” for fashion types.
More optimistically, the deluge of rumors hints at enthusiasm for the inevitable truth. The gig at Chanel is one of the most visible roles in luxury, if not the entirety of fashion
It’s a rare opportunity to transform a label ingrained in popular culture and perhaps the biggest risk-reward proposition in the industry as Viard’s brief, divisive tenure demonstrated. With the security of the Chanel brand behind them, a designer would be basically given carte blanche to bring their vision to life.
So, the enthusiasm behind the possibilities implied by the rumors aren’t unjustified. They’re just exhausting. Fortunately, Chanel is supposedly preparing to announce its new hire in mere weeks, come mid-December.
Then again, those are just rumors, too.
