Every creative director debut of 2026 Although, with all due respect, the best will only come in January 2027

2025 was the year of the great creative reset, but as we know, new beginnings can be complicated. The feeling we experienced was that of a huge flurry of novelties and perhaps, just like the creative directors themselves, we still need a bit more time to focus on the new and diverse brand images that have been proposed to us. Things will be different in 2026.

Now that the dust has settled, many second collections will soon arrive that will help us feel more oriented in a fashion landscape that is changing ever more rapidly. And while we will see the new courses of action started last year solidify, we will also have the chance to witness a new series of highly anticipated debuts that, however, will at least have the advantage of being slightly fewer than in 2025. The hope is that, on a less crowded stage, we will be able to evaluate and weigh them without anxiety.

But what are these debuts? We have decided to list them in order of appearance.

Jaden Smith at Louboutin

It is precisely with Smith that the round of 2026 debuts will open, with a presentation scheduled during the Paris Fashion Week men's in January. Let's be honest: when a rapper/actor/singer son of another rapper/actor/singer constantly on the verge of a PR crisis becomes the creative director of a brand, a certain dose of skepticism is inevitable. Will he just approve a collection designed by an anonymous team? Will he bring real, new ideas? Or will it just be yet another recycler of the Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream style? Yet there is a glimmer of interest.

Louboutin is a legendary brand in the world of women's footwear, but the division Smith will work on—and which needs to be expanded—is the men's one. And perhaps an injection of American coolness into men's shoes, accessories, and leather goods could really result in something interesting.

Maria Grazia Chiuri at Fendi

The first major runway debut of the year, scheduled for the upcoming Milan Fashion Week Women’s in February, the return to the fashion scene of Maria Grazia Chiuri after her (very brief) leave following her exit from Dior is highly anticipated by insiders. Fendi is a much-loved brand that for some time has needed to find a more unique identity and a dimension in which to move without competing with its “big brothers” Louis Vuitton and Dior.

Chiuri, for her part, is a real war machine: for years at Dior, she created collection after collection, including Haute Couture, without apparently tiring. True, her fashion may not be pure avant-garde, but it is certainly solidly commercial. And her last show for the brand, in the gardens of Villa Torlonia in Rome, showed that, immersed in the atmospheres of her country, the designer seems more at ease than on the boulevards of Paris.

Demna at Gucci

Technically, there has already been a debut of Demna at Gucci, actually two. Last Milan Fashion Week, the new creative director presented a first flash collection for Gucci through a film whose premiere was also a kind of meta-show. In December, then, came a pre-collection shot as if it were a '90s runway. They were all just appetizers, ways to test the waters, starters for the February show in which the new vision of Gucci will take definitive shape.

Needless to say, this is the most important debut of the year in terms of pop culture, in terms of industry (Gucci's health affects that of the entire Kering group), and in terms of pure visibility that the show will bring to a Milan Fashion Week that alternates between moments of very high profile and others of very high commerciality.

Meryll Rogge at Marni

Meryll Rogge is an industry darling (at least among press and insiders, since her eponymous brand has not yet reached truly global recognition) and her upcoming debut at Marni is highly anticipated by the more intellectual fringe of fashion commentators. Under Francesco Risso, who led it for a decade or so, Marni became a creature entirely different from how Consuelo Castiglioni had conceived it, but no less fascinating. Practically single-handedly, in the end, Risso relaunched the mohair sweaters we still see around.

The “old” Marni, however, had never been stagnant; its formula always seemed fresh, and so Rogge enters a brand that, at least in terms of style, does not need a course correction, only a new sense of spark that arouses some emotion. But Rogge is among the most gifted young designers on the scene, and so expectations are as high as our hopes.

Antonin Tron at Balmain

After over a decade under Olivier Rousteing, who over the years cultivated an idea of maximalist, hyper-literal luxury that in many cases insisted heavily on itself, Antonin Tron has been called to boost the sales of a brand that, despite its apparent volume and the ostentation it displays, has not been at the center of the conversation for years.

Here, beyond the usual sense of anticipation, there is also the silent question of what Balmain will become in a new phase of development and especially in the hands of a designer like Tron who, with Atlein, has always proposed a creativity light-years away from Rousteing's theatrical vision. Will it fly or crash? We will have to wait until March to find out.

Grace Wales Bonner at Hermès

The most successful debut of the decade? A few days ago, the designer's brand published a simple photo of her Julien sabot, part of the SS26 collection of the brand bearing her name, and gave everyone who had eyes to see a kind of mystical vision of what the same creative could do with the reins of Hermès' ateliers in her hands. A vision too beautiful to be told or even formulated in words.

Too bad this specific debut will not arrive until January 2027 and so it will take a long time before seeing what Grace Wales Bonner has in store for us. Surely Hermès intends to give plenty of time to its new men's creative director to create a collection that, if it does not touch perfection, could come very close. But the best things always come to those who know how to wait.