From London menswear to her past work with Demna, here’s what to know about the designer Kering has chosen to lead the house founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga.

Balenciaga and Kering have announced the appointment of Martine Rose as creative director of the Parisian Maison, where she succeeds Pierpaolo Piccioli. A 45-year-old British designer of Jamaican heritage, Rose founded her namesake label in 2007 and made it one of the reference points of London menswear.
Born in London in 1980, she studied at Camberwell and Middlesex University, where she graduated in fashion design in 2002. Her debut was a collection of ten shirts, presented in a private club in Soho, with a £1,500 loan from the Prince’s Trust as her starting capital.
Support from Fashion East and the British Fashion Council’s NewGen followed, along with a presence on the fashion calendar that has always been unconventional: intermittent shows and unusual formats, like her most recent show at Milan Fashion Week for Spring/Summer 2025, where a remarkable street casting took center stage, complete with wigs and prosthetic noses.
Her aesthetic draws from British subcultures, from reggae to acid house clubs, and works with oversized proportions and an irony that is never didactic. From this has emerged a language that has entered into dialogue with a wide range of partners, from Timberland and CAT to Nike and Napapijri, as well as Ligne Roset furniture.
For Balenciaga, she is not a new face. From 2015 to 2018, Rose worked as a menswear consultant alongside Demna, who had contacted her even before arriving at the Maison because he appreciated her work. She has said that the role was the turning point that made her profession sustainable, and it accompanied the birth of the first menswear collections of the Demna era.
Martine Rose’s reputation is tied above all to menswear, while the Maison founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga is known for a culture of construction and a relationship with the body that extends across the entire wardrobe, even couture.
Her arrival marks the transition from an archive-led period under Piccioli to a sensibility born from the street and London subcultures. The work of the coming months will show how the two legacies can coexist.

Martine Rose Is Balenciaga's New Creative Director

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Martine Rose Is Balenciaga's New Creative Director

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