Kering named Martine Rose creative director of Balenciaga on Friday. She starts on November 16 and will be based in Paris (Kering). The group confirmed that Pierpaolo Piccioli was leaving the day before, after 16 months and three collections (Kering, November 5). Vogue reports that Rose is the first woman to lead the house in its 109 years (Vogue).
Rose has worked at the house before. She consulted on Balenciaga menswear from 2015 to 2018, the years Demna shaped the oversized silhouette Balenciaga still sells, per Vogue. Her own label, founded in 2007, took its proportions from British subcultures: football casuals, rave, reggae sound systems.
The business around that label has been less steady. Rose sold a 60% stake to the incubator Tomorrow Ltd in 2023, then said in March that she would not produce her FW26 collection, which Tomorrow, as majority shareholder, produced anyway. Tomorrow sold the brand to The Level Group the same month, and Rose has not staged a show since SS26 (Vogue). The Level Group also held Coperni, which shut down this week.
On the index, Martine Rose returns 12 listings: nine Supreme x Martine Rose pieces from the 2022 capsule and one Nike x Martine Rose Shox MR4 in safety orange. Balenciaga returns 549. Twelve listings is a thin archive for a designer taking over a house that size.
