Discussion: Who Should Be The Creative Director of Chanel?

[Frederic01]

Chanel’s global leadership group convened in New York last week for a Very Important Meeting that left the distinct impression that Matthieu Blazy, the creative director of Bottega Veneta, will soon be joining the independently-run fashion house as the successor to Karl Lagerfeld.⁠

PUCK NEWS

 

[Lola701]

Blazy has been appointed with immediate effect on 15th Nov 2021 so his contract might actually came to the end two weeks ago or so. That would mean Chanel wouldn’t have to pay for breaking up the contract with Kering and maybe just for non compete or something like that…

It’s possible for him to not have a non compete as he was kind of hired in a hurry, following the abrupt departure of Lee.
The terms of his contract would have been more interesting now, with a renewal, backed with good commercial and critical performances…

Tbh, if I was him, I would take the Chanel job. Beyond the challenge and the ressources, it’s a much safer position. He can have a 5 yrs contract with much more interesting terms. It will put another Kering brand on an unsettling position though.

If I was Pinault, to keep Blazy, I would promise Gucci to him.

 

[Drusilla_]

^we can't be sure Blazy doesn't have a non compete, even Sarah Burton (whose appointment at Alexander McQueen happened equally suddenly) obviously had one in place which was why LVMH was forced to wait for a year after her departure from McQueen before announcing she'd been hired.

But I admit it is a possibility that she only got the non compete clause at a contract renewal and not immediately on appointment, so if it's the same for him at BV where it hasn't been quite 3 years...

 

[Nimsay]

Ok. I guess. IMO it was the intrecciato RTW stuff that Chanel liked... since Karl effectively replaced the normal tweed with his own woven-embroidered concoction. Maybe they need someone who understands weaving at a granular level... Blazy appears to have mastery over textile fabrication.

 

[Frederic01]

Full Article :

Blazy Saddles
News, notes, idle gossip, and fresh reporting on the increasing likelihood that Bottega’s Matthieu Blazy is getting the Chanel job.

Chanel’s global leadership group convened in New York last week for a Very Important Meeting that left the distinct impression that Matthieu Blazy, the creative director of Bottega Veneta, will soon be joining the independently-run fashion house as the successor to Karl Lagerfeld. (Virginie Viard, in the final analysis, was merely a placeholder.) There could be an announcement that Blazy is leaving Bottega Veneta as early as November 26, I’m told by multiple sources—although the process may take longer than anticipated out of respect for Patrice Leguéreau, Chanel’s recently deceased fine jewelry designer, which might explain why the rumor mill is outpacing a deal.

First, the requisite caveats: Blazy has not told me that he is the next creative director of Chanel. In fact, he has said nothing when people have asked him directly. Leena Nair, the C.E.O. of Chanel, has not confirmed anything to me, either, and the Wertheimer brothers, who own Chanel, haven’t talked to a journalist in 20 years. (And even then, it wasn’t about Chanel…) Also, deals fall through, people get cold feet, and things stall. Nevertheless, I’d liken this situation to Alessandro Michele’s appointment at Valentino, or Raf Simons’ move to Calvin Klein: There are too many people aware for it not to be a done deal, or an imminently done deal. (Also, only LVMH rescinds offers.)

Blazy may seem like a dark horse, but he really shouldn’t. Born in 1984, a year after Lagerfeld was named Chanel’s creative director, Blazy has spent most of his career behind the scenes. He worked with Simons and Pieter Mulier (his ex-boyfriend) at both the former’s namesake brand and Calvin Klein in New York. He designed for Phoebe Philo at Céline and as a lead designer at Maison Margiela in between Martin and John Galliano. He then worked under Daniel Lee at a rebooted Bottega Veneta, and was brought back in 2021 to run the brand after Lee exited.

Blazy’s Bottega has been something of a slow burn, with sales building steadily and reviews becoming more emphatic with each season. His Spring/Summer 2025 collection, which was inspired by the passage of time from childhood to adulthood—“a dangerous game,” he said backstage of a grown-up dress covered in little metal matchsticks—was his most intellectual and commercial exercise to date. Creatively, Blazy is only getting started.

Brand-First​

Blazy’s relative youth may be a calculated risk for Chanel. Of all the remarkable designers who could have done this job—Mulier, Marc Jacobs, Hedi Slimane, Jonathan Anderson, and Simon Porte Jacquemus, to name a few obvious candidates—most had already demonstrated the full extent of their creative prowess. The consensus is that most fashion designers have a decade of original ideas in them. (Anderson and Jacobs, like Miuccia Prada, are high-level thinkers who approach their work like fine artists: they’re generational anomalies.) We don’t know what Blazy is capable of.

Choosing Blazy would also indicate a lot about Nair’s vision for Chanel. For the past year, I’ve been hearing from inside the company that Nair, an H.R. executive by trade, has wanted to make the business less siloed, more cross-functional, more rational, etcetera. In the old days, Kaiser Karl and Bruno Pavlovsky, the company’s president of fashion, won every battle based on their gut instincts and stature. Now, as Pavlovsky approaches his own retirement, there’s an opportunity for Nair to recalibrate and set the company on a more modern course. There is speculation that Joyce Green, who used to run the American fashion business under Pavlovsky but was moved to France last year, will replace him.

Hiring Blazy would be the strongest indication that Nair is looking to organize Chanel more like Hermès, which is happy to put its designers (and executives) in front of the press, but prizes brand primacy above all. Slimane, a crowd favorite, would have demanded complete control over every element of Chanel—and may not have been inclined to stick around for more than five years. Jacquemus, who was thought to be Pavlovsky’s pick, would have brought marketing prowess to match Lagerfeld’s grocery store-set grandeur, but is fiercely independent and would probably have wanted to continue developing his own brand, a likely sticking point for Chanel. Anderson and Jacobs both design lines, with their names on them… that are owned by LVMH.

In the end, Mulier is the only other candidate that fits Nair’s job description and relatively modest salary range of $4 million to $5 million a year. Mulier would also have a few key advantages over Blazy: He’s arguably more ready for the job, given his seniority and near-instantaneous, sales-spiking success reimagining Alaïa, and certainly seems more comfortable in front of the camera and hobnobbing with celebrities. (There are only about 20 images of the 40-year-old Blazy on Getty, whereas there are 867 of Jacquemus.) In the modern era, this sort of high-touch talent management is practically a requirement of the job. Bottega has its share of celebrity ambassadors, including Julianne Moore and Jacob Elordi, but they are fashion people in addition to being actors. Chanel, on the other hand, has centered its marketing around celebrity and influencer programming for the past 15 years. Viard’s lack of interest in that part of the business was a genuine source of frustration for some people in the business, I’m told.

For the broader fashion industry, though, the Blazy option is viewed as an overwhelming positive—a relief, even. It’s good for Blazy, who is universally respected and admired, good for the designers working in that atelier, good for people who want to believe design is the best marketing tool, and good for the consumer, who will once again be given a reason to dream. As for what happens at Bottega, maybe Blazy designs one last collection to give Kering time to find the right successor. My guess is that whatever is happening behind the scenes, it’s all very civil on both sides. This job is a precious thing.

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[Lola701]

^we can't be sure Blazy doesn't have a non compete, even Sarah Burton (whose appointment at Alexander McQueen happened equally suddenly) obviously had one in place which was why LVMH was forced to wait for a year after her departure from McQueen before announcing she'd been hired.

But I admit it is a possibility that she only got the non compete clause at a contract renewal and not immediately on appointment, so if it's the same for him at BV where it hasn't been quite 3 years...

For Sarah, it’s kind of « normal » as she had a renewal already. She took the job right on the spot like Virginie did with Karl.
I don’t think she had a freelance contract at McQueen prior to his death. The same for Virginie. She has been working exclusively for Chanel for 20 years so she had a more permanent contract and judging by the way it ended, I don’t think they changed her contract beyond a pay evolution.

Kering is very loose loose with their non competition tbh. We saw it with Hedi Slimane. Maybe they wanted to be cheap with him because he was expensive in the first place.

There’s more at stake for BV now than when they hired Blazy. The only thing that makes me believe in this possibility is how Kering does their business.

At LVMH, it’s simple: within the group, changes can happen over season. When a designer is leaving the group and has an eponymous brand, the scenario is easy. And when the designer leaves and has no on going commitment, there’s an automatic non competition of 1 year.

 

[tourbillions]

cant blieve theyll come to such a boring choice... Theres 0 story in his BV. Just a lot of "what would Lee do" collections. Atleast we can have filippo at bottega... one can dream. He would turn it upside down and finally make it fresh than Blazy's mouldy experimentation on the weaving. His last collection at missoni was pretty much BV if it was fun.

 

[Nimsay]

i wish i knew who filippo was.

I want to see good fashion too....

 

[Salvatore]

i wish i knew who filippo was.

I want to see good fashion too....

Previous CD at Missoni

 

[Lola701]

cant blieve theyll come to such a boring choice... Theres 0 story in his BV. Just a lot of "what would Lee do" collections. Atleast we can have filippo at bottega... one can dream. He would turn it upside down and finally make it fresh than Blazy's mouldy experimentation on the weaving. His last collection at missoni was pretty much BV if it was fun.

Filippo would be welcomed anywhere tbh. Pucci, Fendi, Bottega Veneta.
I just don’t want one of those brand to undergo another change of logos and the whole thing.

I can’t wait for BV to get rid of that green btw.

i wish i knew who filippo was.

I want to see good fashion too....

Ex CD of Missoni, ex design director at Givenchy and Burberry under Tisci, ex design director at Margiela from 2005 to 2013.
A talent.

 

[Living Proof]

Lauren Sherman wrote: "My guess is that whatever is happening behind the scenes, it’s all very civil on both sides. This job is a precious thing."

If a designer really wants to leave there isn't much Kering can do about it. Sure, they could force him to stay until the end of his contract but do you really want an unhappy designer at your fashion house? Letting him go in good terms is the smartest thing to do, you just don't get offered to be creative director of Chanel everyday, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Blazy is not unhappy with BV or Kering in the slightest I can guarantee you that. He’s working with several close friends there, his team loves him and the atelier worships him. He even said it at a dinner earlier this year that it’s the first job since Raf that he genuinely loves. But obviously as a French-Belgian designer, Creative Director at Chanel is just not a job he’d say no to, it’s literally the ultimate for him (even if he ends up regretting it in a few years).

 

[NYLA22]

Blazy is not unhappy with BV or Kering in the slightest I can guarantee you that. He’s working with several close friends there, his team loves him and the atelier worships him. He even said it at a dinner earlier this year that it’s the first job since Raf that he genuinely loves. But obviously as a French-Belgian designer, Creative Director at Chanel is just not a job he’d say no to, it’s literally the ultimate for him (even if he ends up regretting it in a few years).

What I can't get over, though, is the $4 million salary at Chanel (assuming here that what Lauren reports is true). Surely he is making roughly that at BV. Why would Chanel risk underpaying someone who could then leave in a year or two for a $10 million job at LVMH? (I'm assuming, of course, that doubling a salary is a motivator for Blazy, but who knows, maybe not! Maybe working at Chanel is reward enough and he isn't motivated money).

 

[Lola701]

What I can't get over, though, is the $4 million salary at Chanel (assuming here that what Lauren reports is true). Surely he is making roughly that at BV. Why would Chanel risk underpaying someone who could then leave in a year or two for a $10 million job at LVMH? (I'm assuming, of course, that doubling a salary is a motivator for Blazy, but who knows, maybe not! Maybe working at Chanel is reward enough and he isn't motivated money).

Blazy is not making more than 2M € at BV. And I’m generous. I would say 1,5 at best!
This is his first CD gig.

And not every designer can aspire to a 10M job at LVMH. You needs to be a very high profile figure in the first place. I think JWA can be close to that with Dior. But essentially, NG has the best salary in the group today. And that has to do with his status before joining Louis Vuitton and his performances since he took over.

4M when you are working and living in Paris is more than comfortable and you get to have the best conditions ever.

This can’t be seen from an American POV.

4M is a great base to build on something long lasting. Karl exceeded the 10M in the last decade of his career at Chanel.

 

[NYLA22]

Blazy is not making more than 2M € at BV. And I’m generous. I would say 1,5 at best!
This is his first CD gig.

And not every designer can aspire to a 10M job at LVMH. You needs to be a very high profile figure in the first place. I think JWA can be close to that with Dior. But essentially, NG has the best salary in the group today. And that has to do with his status before joining Louis Vuitton and his performances since he took over.

4M when you are working and living in Paris is more than comfortable and you get to have the best conditions ever.

This can’t be seen from an American POV.

4M is a great base to build on something long lasting. Karl exceeded the 10M in the last decade of his career at Chanel.

Thanks Lola, I value this insight, and you are right -- I think my perspective on money is completely deranged as an American living in NYC lol. Do you also think that in general, CD salaries have gone down, or is this quite normal? The reason I ask is because I remember that Raf's yearly compensation at Calvin Klein was supposedly $18 million, which is mind blowing to me. But I guess he came with a huge resume, like NG (having come from Dior).

 

[Lola701]

Thanks Lola, I value this insight, and you are right -- I think my perspective on money is completely deranged as an American living in NYC lol. Do you also think that in general, CD salaries have gone down, or is this quite normal? The reason I ask is because I remember that Raf's yearly compensation at Calvin Klein was supposedly $18 million, which is mind blowing to me. But I guess he came with a huge resume, like NG (having come from Dior).

Raf Simons was able to charge that kind of money because he was coming from Dior. The cachet of having that kind of individual at a company like CK comes with a price. But he also had a responsibility over the whole house and it subdivisions.
But Raf probably lowered his salary for Prada. And yes, Raf Simons, coming from Jil Sander didn’t have a 10M salary at Dior.

And for NG it was even different because he had a different trajectory. He owned 10% of Balenciaga so he received 32 millions if I remember when he gave up his stakes. On top of that, he had his salary and over 6 Millions for the end of his contract. The numbers were revealed in Le Monde back in the day.

Salaries for CD have gone up. It’s not going down and it won’t. But there’s a reality: places are rare next to the sun. And every CD position is not comparable to the other.

Haider Ackermann will undeniably be paid better at Tom Ford than Peter Copping at Lanvin. Pieter Muller and Chemena Kamala are probably paid around the same amount.

There are a number of factors to take in consideration for the position of a creative director (and their creative team that follows them). And of course, it’s good to have a good lawyer who will push the négociations to the limits lol.

And we have to remember that those are temporary contracts with renewal options. Those opportunities can be opportunities of a lifetime but they also can stop abruptly.

Tbh, after 1 or 2M €, when working as a designer in Paris and if you are little bit clever over the terms of your contract, the difference of lifestyle is very thin.
You maybe need extra money to buy expensive Art but you rarely get the kind of Galliano/Tisci/McQueen trajectory where designers goes from total struggle to fortune overnight. So those people’s lives are not turned upside down suddenly because they are CD. It just adds an extra dose of financial comfort.

 

[Frederic01]

All this talk of who will take over Chanel but I also wonder where will Virginie Viard go (if anywhere)? No doubt she has a superb resume that would be attractive to a LVMH / Kering, no? After all, her ability to drive sales by billions is really something, no?

 

[LadyJunon]

All this talk of who will take over Chanel but I also wonder where will Virginie Viard go (if anywhere)? No doubt she has a superb resume that would be attractive to a LVMH / Kering, no? After all, her ability to drive sales by billions is really something, no?

Considering her age (62), she has most likely decided to retire.

 

[Lola701]

All this talk of who will take over Chanel but I also wonder where will Virginie Viard go (if anywhere)? No doubt she has a superb resume that would be attractive to a LVMH / Kering, no? After all, her ability to drive sales by billions is really something, no?

I don’t expect her to be a CD anywhere tbh. I think she continued out of loyalty for Karl and the team but that’s it. All of Karl’s assistant/studio directors who had personal ambition left at some point but she stayed.

I can see her going back to costume design or maybe collaborate on projects around Karl for example. She can join Karl Lagerfeld as a special project advisor or something…Or maybe design a line of cashmere I don’t know.

But being the CD of a house? No.

She should enjoy life and the money Karl left to her too.lol

 

[THD96]

Matthew is a fine choice tbh. I imagine what he has done for BV in terms of leather good accessories are what the Wertheimer looking for at the moment. And he also delivered some good fashion statements, so why not it’s could be interesting.
One aspect that I’m not too thrilled about is is association with the Raf crowds, I hope he doesn’t over-intellectualize, over analyzing Chanel. I mean we all see how that turn out, with Alaïa, and we definitely don’t need all that at Chanel. Karl was anything but pretentious.

She should enjoy life and the money Karl left to her too.lol

Girl, her over you, I’ll be bitter.