Last week, French luxury group Kering confirmed Pierpaolo Piccioli was leaving Balenciaga after 16 months serving the house. Martine Rose was appointed as the new creative director less than 24 hours after the announcement was made. 

She will start her new role next week and will be based in Paris. 

Under the group CEO Luca de Meo, Kering has shown it will act fast when a house underperforms. Rose’s appointment is the third creative leadership change at a Kering brand in a month, following the departures of Anthony Vaccarello from Saint Laurent and Seán McGirr from Alexander McQueen. 

The reshuffle was part of de Meo’s effort to restore growth after a three-year slowdown that hit Gucci, the group’s largest label, hardest.

Piccioli was hired in May 2025 to steer the house away from the streetwear and provocation of Demna’s decade and back toward Cristóbal Balenciaga’s couture roots.

Rose is a direct line to the Demna years. She spent three years at Balenciaga as a menswear consultant after Demna took over in 2015. The Business of Fashion said her hiring offers a closer connection to that era. Put plainly, Kering is betting that the customers Balenciaga lost are the ones Demna found.

Rose, 45, was born in Croydon, South London, and is British-Jamaican. She founded her eponymous label in 2007. Rose is the first woman to lead the house creatively in its 109-year history and only the second black woman to hold the top creative role at a major European fashion house.

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