Doesn't Have One Job To Do

Craft, heritage and exclusivity mean less to today’s consumer than before. Increasingly, people want to see the things they love and values they uphold saturate the brands they buy. As fashion houses realise that there are universes to be built, tribes to be defined, and culture to be communicated, pundits are wondering whether modern creative directors really can manifest them all

- Andrea Sim

Clare Waight Keller’s inception as Givenchy’s artistic director in 2017 came with great responsibility. The Peter Parker cliché lends itself here, as the brand’s then-CEO Philippe Fortunato, who’s now spearheading Richemont’s fashion portfolio, boldly stated that the grand plan was to supercharge Givenchy to Dior proportions. The latter’s revenue in 2018 was over 2 billion euros. The former then, north of 400 million euros.

After three years, Waight Keller — who’d finessed floaty, bohemian femininity at Chloé to cult status and launched many It bags of the 2010s — and the house parted ways. Unsurprisingly, because despite the designer’s beautiful, modern couture and directional ready-to-wear collections, what did the brand as a whole really say to consumers between 2017 to 2020? Beyond nice products and that Ariana Grande campaign, it did little to invigorate memory structures around what Givenchy stood for — especially after her predecessor Riccardo Tisci’s unforgettable 13-year tenure, during which he positioned the brand as a legacy house that dabbled in streetwear, imbuing it with a dark and Gothic edge. According to analysts, Fortunato’s ambition is yet to be made a reality, even though the brand had grown both its physical and digital sales touchpoints over Waight Keller’s tenure. Today, Givenchy needs to be rejuvenated: In both what it stands for when viewed through a modern lens, and how it’s made itself distinct from its peers. And they’ve picked none other than Matthew M. Williams to accomplish the task.

WHY FASHION HAS A NEW BREED OF CREATIVE DIRECTORS