Between December 2024 and November 2026, every major fashion house owned by Kering either changed its creative director or lost one. Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen have all been affected, and Balenciaga has changed designers twice. Over the same period, the French luxury group replaced its chief executive, sold its beauty business and launched a turnaround plan.
This explainer sets out what happened at each house, in order, and the business pressures behind the changes.
Where each house stands
| House | Previous creative lead | Current status (November 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Gucci | Sabato De Sarno (2023–2025) | Demna, artistic director since July 2025 |
| Bottega Veneta | Matthieu Blazy (2021–2024) | Louise Trotter, since January 2025 |
| Balenciaga | Demna (2015–2025), then Pierpaolo Piccioli (2025–2026) | Martine Rose, starting November 16, 2026 |
| Saint Laurent | Anthony Vaccarello (2016–2026) | Successor not yet announced |
| Alexander McQueen | Seán McGirr (2023–2026) | Successor not yet announced |
The full timeline
- December 2024: Bottega Veneta announces that Matthieu Blazy is leaving. He is named creative director of Chanel the same month.
- January 2025: Louise Trotter succeeds Blazy at Bottega Veneta.
- February 2025: Sabato De Sarno leaves Gucci, just before a planned Milan runway show.
- March 13, 2025: Kering names Demna, Balenciaga’s creative director since 2015, as artistic director of Gucci.
- May 2025: Pierpaolo Piccioli is named Balenciaga’s creative director. He joins on July 10.
- June 2025: Kering announces Luca de Meo, formerly chief executive of Renault, as its next CEO.
- September 15, 2025: De Meo takes office. François-Henri Pinault remains chairman.
- September 17, 2025: Francesca Bellettini is named president and CEO of Gucci, replacing Stefano Cantino.
- September 2025: Demna unveils his first Gucci collection, La Famiglia, ahead of Milan Fashion Week.
- October 20, 2025: Kering agrees to sell its beauty division to L’Oréal for €4 billion.
- November 18, 2025: De Meo outlines his “ReconKering” turnaround plan in an internal memo.
- February 10, 2026: Kering reports a 2025 net loss of €29 million.
- April 16, 2026: At a Capital Markets Day in Florence, de Meo pledges to more than double the group’s profit margin.
- October 9, 2026: Saint Laurent announces Anthony Vaccarello‘s departure after ten years.
- October 15, 2026: Kering confirms Seán McGirr is leaving Alexander McQueen after three years.
- November 5, 2026: Balenciaga announces Piccioli’s departure after about 16 months.
- November 6, 2026: Kering appoints Martine Rose as Balenciaga’s creative director.
The starting point: Gucci’s slump
Gucci is the key to understanding the reshuffle. It has long been Kering’s largest brand, and in 2025 it still generated about 60% of the group’s operating profit, according to Reuters. Kering’s recurring operating margin peaked at 27.5% in 2022, largely thanks to Gucci.
Gucci’s sales began to decline after Alessandro Michele, its creative director since 2015, left in November 2022. His successor, Sabato De Sarno, presented his first collection in September 2023 and left in February 2025, shortly before a scheduled Milan show, according to Fashion Dive. Gucci’s organic sales fell 25% in the second quarter of 2025, as reported by WWD in a story republished by Yahoo Finance, and its 2025 sales fell about 22% to €6 billion, according to Reuters.
Bottega Veneta: Blazy leaves for Chanel
The first move was not Kering’s choice. In December 2024, Bottega Veneta announced that Matthieu Blazy was leaving. Blazy had joined the house as design director of ready-to-wear in 2020 and became creative director in November 2021. Chanel named him its creative director the same month he left.
Bottega Veneta moved quickly, appointing Louise Trotter, previously creative director of Carven, at the end of January 2025, according to FORMA. Bottega Veneta was one of Kering’s more resilient brands through the downturn, with revenue up 3% in 2025, according to nss magazine.
Gucci and Balenciaga: the Demna swap
On March 13, 2025, Kering named Demna artistic director of Gucci, starting in early July. Demna, a co-founder of Vetements, had led Balenciaga since 2015 and was credited with turning it into one of the most talked-about brands in fashion. Then-Kering chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault said Demna’s creative power was what Gucci needed, as reported by Fashion Dive.
The move left Balenciaga without a designer. In May 2025, Kering named Pierpaolo Piccioli, who had spent 25 years at Valentino and led it as sole creative director from 2016 to 2024, as Balenciaga’s new creative director. He joined on July 10, 2025.
Demna’s first Gucci collection, called La Famiglia, was unveiled in September 2025, just before Milan Fashion Week, with a short film by Spike Jonze. Instead of a traditional runway show, the collection was presented as a series of character portraits, each representing a Gucci archetype.
A new chief executive
In June 2025, Kering announced that Luca de Meo, the former chief executive of carmaker Renault, would become its CEO. De Meo took office on September 15, 2025, succeeding François-Henri Pinault as chief executive, while Pinault remained chairman, according to FORMA.
De Meo moved quickly at Gucci. On September 17, 2025, Kering appointed Francesca Bellettini as Gucci’s president and CEO, replacing Stefano Cantino after less than a year in the role, according to TheIndustry.fashion. Bellettini had run Saint Laurent from 2013 and later served as Kering’s deputy CEO, a role that was eliminated. De Meo described Gucci as the group’s flagship and the house requiring the sharpest focus.
Selling beauty and the “ReconKering” plan
On October 20, 2025, Kering agreed to sell its beauty division to L’Oréal for €4 billion in cash. Under the deal, L’Oréal acquired the fragrance house Creed and received 50-year exclusive licences to develop fragrances and cosmetics for Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga, with Gucci Beauty to follow once its existing licence with Coty expires, according to Inside Retail. The sale was expected to close in the first half of 2026.
On November 18, 2025, de Meo set out a turnaround plan, called “ReconKering,” in an internal memo. According to Luxonomy, the plan included closing underperforming stores, simplifying the group’s structure, sharing logistics, data and production platforms across brands, and reducing the group’s dependence on Gucci by giving Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and McQueen a larger role.
2025 results and the Florence investor day
Kering’s 2025 results, published on February 10, 2026, showed the cost of the transition. The group reported a net loss of €29 million, compared with a profit of €1.02 billion in 2024, largely because of restructuring costs. Recurring operating income fell 33% to €1.63 billion, and the recurring operating margin fell to 11.1% from 14.5%, nss magazine reported. Fourth-quarter organic sales fell 3%, a smaller decline than analysts had expected, and Kering’s shares rose sharply on the day.
On April 16, 2026, de Meo presented his full strategy to investors in Florence. He pledged to more than double Kering’s operating margin over the medium term and to restore the group’s fundamentals by the end of 2028, according to Reuters. Plans included cutting inventory by €1 billion within 12 months, reducing the number of Gucci stores, and doubling the share of high-margin leather goods in Gucci’s revenue, adding about €1 billion in sales by 2030. Kering also announced plans to develop luxury smart glasses with Google and to take a minority stake in Chinese fashion brand Icicle. The company did not give specific revenue or margin targets for 2026 or 2027, and its shares fell about 2.5% after the presentation.
Autumn 2026: three exits in a month
The second wave of changes arrived in autumn 2026.
Saint Laurent. On October 9, Saint Laurent announced that Anthony Vaccarello was leaving after a decade as creative director. Under Vaccarello, Saint Laurent’s sales more than tripled, from €1.22 billion in 2016 to €3.3 billion in 2022, but gross revenue fell 9% in 2024 and 6% in 2025, according to Reuters. In the announcement, Saint Laurent CEO Cédric Charbit credited Vaccarello with bringing the house to the forefront of desirability, and said new creative leadership would be announced soon.
Alexander McQueen. On October 15, Kering confirmed that Seán McGirr was leaving McQueen after three years. McGirr, who succeeded Sarah Burton in October 2023, had just shown his final collection in London on September 20, marking the brand’s return to London Fashion Week. McQueen is in the middle of a turnaround: Kering planned to halve its store network by the end of 2026 and appointed former Prada executive Gianfranco D’Attis as McQueen’s CEO in June 2026, according to Retail Gazette.
Balenciaga. On November 5, Balenciaga announced that Piccioli was leaving after about 16 months and four collections, including his haute couture debut in July 2026. The following day, Kering named British designer Martine Rose as Balenciaga’s creative director, starting November 16. Rose, who worked at Balenciaga as a menswear consultant under Demna from 2015 to 2018, is the first woman to lead the house creatively and the first creative director hired by de Meo. Read our full report on her appointment.
How the business looks now
Kering’s third-quarter results, published on October 22, 2026, showed revenue of €3.345 billion, stable on a reported basis and down 1% on a comparable basis, according to Kering. The Fashion & Leather Goods division reported revenue of €2.743 billion, down 3% on a comparable basis, and Gucci’s revenue fell 6% on a comparable basis. Kering said Saint Laurent’s sales had largely stabilised during the year, according to Reuters.
What comes next
Two of Kering’s five major fashion houses, Saint Laurent and McQueen, are waiting for new creative directors. Industry speculation reported by Reuters has linked Chloé creative director Chemena Kamali, a former womenswear design director at Saint Laurent, to the Saint Laurent role. Neither Chloé nor its owner Richemont has commented.
Analysts at Barclays, cited by Reuters, said Saint Laurent’s next designer is likely to focus on areas where the brand is less developed, including women’s daywear, menswear, high-end leather goods and markets such as China and the rest of Asia.
Meanwhile, the designers appointed in the first wave are now being judged on sales. Demna has been at Gucci for more than a year, Louise Trotter has completed several seasons at Bottega Veneta, and Martine Rose’s first Balenciaga collection is expected in March 2027.
Sources: Fashion Dive; FORMA; WWD via Yahoo Finance; TheIndustry.fashion; Inside Retail; Luxonomy; nss magazine; Reuters via Global Banking & Finance; Reuters via KSL; Kering press release; Retail Gazette; Kering Q3 2026 results.
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