What Does The Brand Really Expect From The Creative Director?

At the beginning of this year, Brioni appointed the former buyer director Justin O 'Shea of MyTheresa.

Creative director, last Tuesday, announced that the brand had dismissed Justin O 'Shea.

Even though Justin O 'Shea has been dismissed, the appointment of Justin O' Shea has raised many questions that are worth exploring. What do we really expect from the creative director? Is the creative director just another way of Brand Ambassadors? What is the real task of the creative director? In order to determine the true meaning of Brioni appointment and its implications.

The definition of the role of creative director must be defined first.

It is not surprising that people have widely misunderstood the role of creative director.

There are a lot of alternate terms in the fashion industry, and creative director is one of the difficult terms to define. As the brand continues to absorb creative elements and creative talents, the term "creative director" becomes more and more difficult to define.

In view of the general trend of the brand creation team, we can see that the position of creative director is in the whole.

The top level of the team is mainly leadership, attention and supervision of design direction, practical design and practice strategy.

Therefore, many people would think that the brand creative director is the most senior designer in the brand design team, but this is not the case.

Most brands, similar to the Christian Dior fashion house brand, are the designer brands as small as Proenza Schouler.

There are complete design teams.

These designers have completed the design work under the command of the creative director, especially the design team of some big brands. This is the main reason why creative directors are easily misunderstood by the public.

For example, Nad Ge Vanhee-Cybulski, who has been the design director of Olsen sister brand The Row for several years, is mainly responsible for the design of clothing displayed on the brand show, but she is well known or when she was appointed as brand creative director by Hermes.

In addition, the situation of Melissa Battifarano is similar to Nad Ge Vanhee-Cybulski, and she is the design director of Fenty x Puma series.

Others believe that the creative director is only responsible for the basic level of work in the design process, but this kind of talk is not entirely correct.

Take the Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld as an example, and do not slack off in the design of the brand. Since 1983, she has been insisting on sketching the brand design personally.

Forbes's Kim Winser explained a few years ago that the role of creative director is not only to design products, but also to consider marketing and advertising strategies, retail environment, showcase performance and brand respected lifestyles.

With the continuous development of fashion brands, especially considering the globalization of the fashion industry and the integration of a large number of new technologies, the role of creative director has been significantly expanded.

In fact, at a certain level, the role of creative director and CEO has been overlapped, so that Christopher Bailey has served as the chief executive of the brand after two years as Burberry creative director.

Brand search models or brand ambassadors and magazines choose cover stars for one purpose. They want to get the sales figures they want. That is to say, brands and magazines want to attract celebrities to attract fans. Naturally, these fans will be converted into purchasing power. But what do the brands really expect from the creative director? It seems that the brand is looking for a creative leader similar to the brand "it" model and brand ambassador.

Taking Brioni for Justin O 'Shea, for example, we can see that the brand does not need a skilled tailor, it is not looking for the next Crist BAL Balenciaga or John Galliano.

In view of the lack of design ability of Justin O 'Shea, the industry estimates that the brand appointment may be the fit of its image and brand, and he will be responsible for the improvement of the overall image of the brand.

The decision of Justin O 'Shea only to join the company after 6 months' elimination has implied that we should pay more attention to brand sales and brand bottom line, rather than unrestrained design.