From London menswear to a collaboration with Demna, meet the designer stepping up to the helm of Balenciaga.

Balenciaga and Kering have announced the appointment of Martine Rose as creative director of the Parisian fashion house, succeeding Pierpaolo Piccioli. A 45-year-old British designer of Jamaican origins, Rose founded her eponymous brand in 2007 and has since made it a benchmark for London menswear.
Born in London in 1980, she studied at Camberwell and Middlesex University, where she graduated in fashion design in 2002. Her debut collection was a collection of ten shirts, presented at a private club in Soho, with a £1,500 loan from the Prince's Trust as seed money. This was followed by support from Fashion East and the British Fashion Council's NewGen program, and a consistently unconventional calendar presence: intermittent shows and unusual formats, like her latest show at Milan Fashion Week with her Spring/Summer 2025 collection, which featured striking street casting, complete with wigs and prosthetic noses. Her aesthetic draws on British subcultures, from reggae to acid house clubs, and works with loose proportions and a never-didactic irony. This has given rise to a language that has interacted with diverse partners, from Timberland to CAT, from Nike to Napapijri , and even furniture from Ligne Roset.
Rose is not a new face to Balenciaga. From 2015 to 2018, she worked as a menswear consultant for Demna, who had contacted her even before joining the house, appreciating her work. The role, she said, was the transition that made her profession sustainable, and accompanied the birth of the first menswear collections of the Demna era. Rose's work is primarily linked to menswear, while the house founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga is known for a culture of construction and relationship with the body that permeates the entire wardrobe, even couture. Her arrival marks the transition from an archive-based era, led by Piccioli, to a sensibility born of the streets and London subcultures. The work of the coming months will determine how these two legacies can coexist.

Martine Rose at the launch of the Nike x Martine Rose collaboration on July 26, 2023. Getty Images.

Martine Rose Is Balenciaga's New Creative Director

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Martine Rose Is Balenciaga's New Creative Director

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