Let's face it - A company the size of Chanel that had no problems to realize Karl Lagerfeld's runway productions, with such a large PR spending, will not hesitate to pay a non-compete for any designer they deem worthy to become the true successor to Karl Lagerfeld - We can now safely consider Virginie Viard an interim creative director much in the vain as Bill Gaytten was after John Galliano.
That being said, I don't think Chanel is looking for a turnaround of designers for Chanel much in the way as Kering and LVMH have proven for most of their brands in the last 15 years. And it explicitely mentioned a new "creative organization" which suggests a much-needed overhaul of the houses' visuals, from the art direction down to packaging, advertising imagery and the fashion.
The hiring of Hedi Slimane would make sense in that
- He is one of the very few acclaimed creative directors with a daft eye for art direction - As his Saint Laurent and Celine rebrandings have shown.
- A menswear division at Chanel would become a certain hit for the house, therewith providing a distribution channel so far not tapped into - Again, none of the possible creative directors would arguably be up for this challenge.
- The choice of Hedi Slimane would signal a good balance between renewal but also continuation for the house, with a vision not steering too far from an imprint once laid.
- A hiring of this responsibility would no doubt come with a whole lot of staff in all creative departments to reporting to a global image director the kind of which Hedi Slimane would be named as. Just one look at the fact that Balenciaga's couture is headed by Peter Copping, a veteran designer in his own right, makes it a certain bet that he would bring a decently sized staff to handle the couture part, providing him enough time to grow into his shoes with Haute Couture design.
