Luke & Lucie Meier Exit Jil Sander With "a Bright Metaphor of Love"
Jil Sander's two creative directors, Luke and Lucie Meier, have exited the luxury label after eight years of critical acclaim. Jil Sander confirmed the news in a press release issued on February 26.
Renzo Rosso, chairman and founder of parent company OTB Group, offered thanks to the Meiers in the brief statement. The designers returned the favor.
The Meier's departure from Jil Sander came mere hours after they presented the house's Fall/Winter 2025 collection, described in its show notes as "A bright metaphor of love."
Rumors of the couple leaving Jil Sander had been tossed around in fashion gossip circles for months, however, and follows a few months of various shifts at OTB-owned fashion brands.
For instance, at Maison Margiela, former artistic director John Galliano was recently replaced by Diesel creative director Glenn Martens, who had presented his own Milan Fashion Week show just prior to the news of the Meier's exit from Jil Sander.
The Meiers presided over a potent era in Jil Sander history. The luxury label spent much of the past 20 years shifting between parent companies and creative directors, the latter of which included Raf Simons and, briefly, Jil Sander herself.
But the Meiers were the house's longest-standing overseers, having joined in 2017 after stints at Balenciaga and Dior (Lucie) and Supreme (Luke). Luke Meier also still oversees OAMC, his own long-running street-luxury line.
Whereas Jil Sander had always been famed for its approach to uncomplicated luxury, the Meiers kicked its reputation up a couple notches, emphasizing modernist silhouettes with remarkably grounded opulence.
Their Jil Sander was as sumptuous as it was wearable, grounded by material selection — cotton gabardines and light suiting wools were staple textiles — and clean lines. But beyond a sturdy, approachable foundation, The Meiers made Jil Sander sparkle through deliberate indulgence.
Velvets, taffetas, plush leather bags, and gilded accessories reiterated the sumptuousness core to the Jil Sander brand, a mission statement made tangible by the exacting silhouettes that paraded down so many Jil Sander runways. The clothes were their own best spokespeople, really: All it took was a glimpse.
And though the Meiers introduced several commercial partnerships to Jil Sander, including prescient collaborations with Arc'teryx and shoemaker Birkenstock, their most marketable creation was also perhaps their simplest: An oversized T-shirt printed with an all-caps Jil Sander logo, a more literal approach to allowing clothes to speak for themselves.
