What Kind Of Creative Director Does Brand Need? Look At Trends From 45 Designers

For high-end fashion and luxury brands, the existence of "creative director" or "artistic director" is an important guarantee for the brand to lead rather than follow the global fashion trend, to inherit and carry forward the brand unique DNA.

At the same time, whether it is a hundred years old or rising stars, we must carefully balance the weight of creativity and commerce so that brands can be "applauded" and "popular".

The market is changing, the brand strategy is changing, and the way of employing is changing. What kind of "creative talents" do we need in this era?

We witnessed 29 designers taking office and complacent, while 16 designers separated from the brand and set up a new job.

By combing the personnel changes of these creative posts, we summed up the five most recent trends in employing international brands:

Young trend culture forces infiltrate the luxury industry

Designers leave more or less for short-term sales data.

Brand vs designer, power game is more subtle.

Joint cross-border breaking the "one card, one person" binding system

"Young" and "understanding", brand new key words for creative director.

Young trend culture forces infiltrate the luxury industry

French classic luxury brand Louis Vuitton hired New York street Off-White Off-White Virgil Abloh as the artistic director of men's wear, becoming an extremely rare European luxury brand that was hosted by African American designers.

As one of the first luxury brands to catch up with street fashion, Michael Burke, chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton, said: "Virgil Abloh has the inherent creativity and the ability to subvert pop culture. His sensitivity to luxury and proprietary technology will inject new vitality into Louis Vuitton men's clothing."

There is still more data to prove whether Virgil Abloh absorbs gold after "suction". However, the new menswear flash store opened in Tokyo in early Louis Vuitton in 2019 hours is 30% higher than that in the 2017 Supreme joint series (in the same time).

However, a long history of luxury brands, how to make good use of tide designer, is not easy to clap your head.

Louis Vuitton has been actively collaborate with all kinds of avant-garde artists in the past decade. In 2017, it has launched a joint series with New York tide brand Supreme, selling more than one hundred million euros in a single series.

Virgil Abloh's predecessor, Kim Jones, made the first decision after turning to Dior as the artistic director of menswear. The first decision was to invite Japanese Ahn, the co founder of Japan's tide brand Ambush, to be the jewelry designer of the brand men's wear. She is famous for her jewellery style, such as Mini Teddy Bear Pendant, golden pin collar, and cold high-tech headphones.

When the news of Riccardo Tisci's entry into Burberry was released, the share price of the brand rose by 4%.

In 2005, Riccardo Tisci took his dark Goth (Gothic) into the bankrupt Givenchy and helped him turn to profitability.

Burberry chose to cooperate with Riccardo Tisci, perhaps seeing the dark and black humor in his Givenchy design style, hoping to add a little "rebellious" color to the genes of the brand old gentleman.

"Riccardo Tisci is one of the most talented designers of our age," said Marco Gobbetti, chief executive of Burberry brand.

His design has the elegance of modernity and the integration of street clothes and high fashion. This skill is closely related to today's luxury consumers.

His participation has increased the confidence of our design team. "

Designers leave more or less for short-term sales data.

In the fashion industry, the designer's personal style and brand business objectives have been unified for a long time, and the contradiction is inevitable.

But in the digital age, the speed of this kind of contradiction is speeding up, and the designers' leaving or leaving is more or less the short-term sales data.

Whether it is Haider Ackermann, Yin Yiqing, Raf Simons, Nathan Jenden, Olivier Lapidus, or Nina-Maria Nitsche, they have been in office for the longest two years from their appointment to office, and the shortest is only 7 months.

It is possible for us not to be entangled, but let the designer's trial and error space be compressed smaller and smaller. Ten years of grinding a sword may have become the most luxurious dream.

In today's rapidly changing market environment and in front of new and old consumers, "how can we continue to innovate and respond quickly?"

- become a sharp issue for most brands and designers.

The running in period between most brands and designers is greatly reduced, and the way of selecting and assessing designers is more direct.

More brands also choose to move closer to the business model of chao chao, and introduce new Drop models, such as:

Burberry, from October 2018, brands will sell limited edition fashion and other new products on 17 every month. They will be sold through social networking channels such as Instagram, and the total sale time will be 24 hours.

Moncler CEO Remo Ruffini has expressed the hope that the company can launch a new down jacket series every month.

Tod 's launched the "Tod s Factory" project. In the future, it will issue more than one series every year. In addition to the regular series of two seasons in a year, there will be capsule series and limited series. The creative director of the brand has been vacant for nearly three years. At present, all the work is done by the internal creative team.

Haider Ackermann, a French designer from Columbia, cooperated with French luxury menswear brand Berluti for only a year and a half (three seasons).

Haider Ackermann simplified Berluti's exquisite and complex men's wear style and got a good response.

But the brand CEO dissatisfied with the designer in his own brand name spent too much time and energy, failed to fulfill commitments, often absent from the activities of Berluti brand.

Yin Yiqing, a Chinese American designer, has spent a lot of effort on the Paul Poiret, a newly customized Paris originator who has just returned. The first series has restored the brand's original Oriental style in an extremely meticulous manner.

A closer look at the reasons for the "flash away" of the two sides is probably the proposal of Paul Poire's owner and Korea new world international for the future development of the brand.

Insiders say: the new world international investment is Paul Poiret brand, not designer.

In the future, we may want more media exposure and fans support, which will greatly boost sales and provide support for the perfumed beauty make-up project. They may also hire a big designer as the new artistic director.

Last year's breakup story was the Belgian designer Raf Simons and the US brand Calvin Klein.

After leaving Dior, Raf Simons, a high-profile American brand Calvin Klein, began to be complacent and was given complete freedom of creation. It was fully responsible for the design of men's and women's wear series.

But he has been in office for less than two years, and has been accused by CEO, the parent brand and PVH group, that his designs are too advanced and too expensive.

The total investment of the new series of Raf Simons operators is up to 60 million to 70 million US dollars, but the return is far from expected. In the third quarter of 2018, the sales of Calvin Klein increased by only 2% compared with the same period last year, while the pre tax profit (EBIT) fell 17.4% compared with the same period last year due to the growth of creative and marketing expenses.

In September of this year, Calvin Klein decided to withdraw part of its Raf Simons rights, including store design, visual merchandising, e-commerce, public relations and communications, and corporate social responsibility. It will no longer report to Raf Simons and be responsible by the chief marketing officer.

Although the company offered a renewal contract to Raf Simons, Raf Simons, which was deeply dissatisfied with the creative power, rejected the new contract and the two sides broke up ahead of schedule.

The whole process is only 28 months.

Brand vs designer, power game is more subtle.

It is worth noting that when Raf Simons left the post of creative director of Dior brand woman in October 2015, there was also a source of news that the reason for leaving was Dior company's reluctance to empower.

The documentary "Dior and I" really depicts the process of preparing the first show after Raf Simons joins Dior. It can feel deeply how a designer who has just entered the classic brand is walking on thin ice, how to adapt to the original design team of the brand, how to manage the relationship with the brand CEO, when to be strong and when to compromise, all need to be very delicate trade-offs.

After LVMH Celine, the new creative director of Hedi, was elected, the outside world felt that Hedi was "strong" and even unreasonable.

With a series of attempts to erase the traces of posts, such as changing logo and emptying the brand history Instagram account, many brands of fans have rebounded emotionally.

In the face of the accusation, Hedi Slimane once said lightly: "I take the story, culture and personal language with other people to join the brand, so we must overcome all difficulties and stick to ourselves."

Such strength has attracted numerous controversies, but it also makes him and his brand more visible and visible in social media.

The new creative director tends to integrate his personal style into the brand DNA, so that the style of products, stores and fashion shows will be refreshed.

But for a brand that has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, its public image and marketing caliber are completely different from the arrival of a designer. Through the spread and fermentation of social media, it usually leads to two kinds of positive and negative voices, or even heated arguments, which will make the brand sensitive nerves more vulnerable.

In the age of social media, the more controversial, the stronger the contrast, the easier it is to differentiate, and the more users can participate.

But are these flows regarded as "tap water" equal to the real market and users?

Before long, how many brands of designer stars today rely on them?

What can they bring to the brand?

The answer to these questions depends not only on the designer's individual, but also on the strategic formulation and execution ability of the brand management.

What's more, today's brand is much more popular than ever.

The tide brand fire has made many brands realize that joint crossover is an effective marketing tool. Joint cross-border activities also help boost the brand's IP and quietly break the close relationship between the past brand and a creative director.

In 2018:

Moncler ended the partnership with the two designers, Giambattista Valli and Thom Browne, who were originally responsible for the Gamme Rouge of the women's wear accessory line and the Gamme Bleu of the men's accessory line Gamme Bleu, and launched a new Moncler Genius project -- launching a joint series with 8 creative designers and creative personages, including the creative director of the creative center, the founder of Teng Yuan Hao.

Burberry announced the launch of a joint series with the British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.

Supreme released four joint targets in one breath in October: the classic American Cowboy brand Levi 's, the skateboard brand Vans, the outdoor brand The North Face and Hongkong director Johnwoo's 1989 movie "double blood".

UNIQLO is even a "combine harvester". Its partners include Murakami Takashi, Disney, man Wei, KAWS, Jil Sander, Christophe Lemaire, etc., and has successfully built the "cross border T-shirt" of its T-shirt product line UT into a systematic commercial sales mode.

...

"Young" and "understanding", brand new key words for creative director.

"Youth" and "understanding" are two key words that Lanvin and Bottega Veneta have appeared in explaining how to select creative directors.

To revive Lanvin's past glory, China's Fosun International Group has become an important part of its revival plan after it has completed the acquisition of the majority equity of the brand.

After thousands of choices, it was decided to fill the vacancy for nearly 10 months by Bruno Sialell, which is only 32 years old.

For the reasons for choosing Sialell, Lanvin is an explanation: after the repeated selection of a number of outstanding designers, because of Sialelli's contemporary vision of Lanvin, the whole essence element of the brand is fully interpreted and understood, as well as an exciting and clear drawing of the brand's future.

It is worth noting that Lanvin believes that the most impressive part of his presentation is the more youthful interpretation of the essence of the brand tradition.

Daniel Lee, the new creative director of Kai Yun group's brand Bottega Veneta, is only 32 years old, neither has a personal brand, nor has any brand creative director. Even its design style is very little known outside the world. Compared with the brand creative director, who has worked for the brand for 17 years, has made outstanding achievements, and has been 61 years old German designer Tomas Maier, the difference between the two people is quite different.

Why do we choose this young designer to take the lead?

Bottega Veneta CEO Claus Dietrich Lahrs said: "Daniel Lee has a deep understanding of the challenges facing the brand in terms of creativity and development.

He will inject new and unique creative language for Bottega Veneta, and continue to lead the brand to greater success through the great foundation laid by the brand over the years.

In addition to Bruno Sialell and Daniel Lee, more and more Post-80 designers are taking the responsibility of brand creative director.

For example: Louis Vuitton Virgil Abloh 38 years old, Carolina Herrera Wes Gorden 32 years old, M Missoni Margherita Margherita 35 years old...

Conclusion:

In this uncertain business world, what forces drive brands and designers, business organizations and creative talents to recognize and trust each other?

We believe that this is a strategic vision of the situation, a profound understanding and renewal of brand DNA, and a hope of "change" and "innovation".

Let's wait and see how well these brands will perform in the next few years.