EXCLUSIVE: Givenchy Selects Sarah Burton as Next Designer

PARIS — Givenchy has selected Sarah Burton as its new creative director, WWD can confirm exclusively.

The British designer, who spent her entire fashion career at Alexander McQueen in London, becomes Givenchy’s eighth designer — and its second female couturier.

She will be introduced this week to the workers in the ateliers at Avenue George V — a storied ritual in French fashion — and she is expected to present her first designs for Givenchy during Paris Fashion Week in March 2025.

“Sarah Burton is an exceptional creative talent whose work I have passionately followed for many years. I am very glad that she is joining Givenchy today,” Sidney Toledano, chairman of the Givenchy board, said in a statement shared first with WWD.

“Her unique vision and approach to fashion will be invaluable to this iconic maison, known for its audacity and haute couture,” he continued. “I am convinced that her creative leadership will contribute to the future success and international standing of the maison.”

“It is a great honor to be joining the beautiful house of Givenchy, it is a jewel,” said Burton, whose creative responsibilities cover all women’s and men’s collections. “I am so excited to be able to write the next chapter in the story of this iconic house and to bring to Givenchy my own vision, sensibility and beliefs.”

A fastidious fashion technician prized for dramatic tailoring and intricate, yet empowering dresses, Burton was rarely seen backstage without straight pins stored in her sweater sleeves, and a big pair of scissors shoved in a back pocket.

She follows in the footsteps of the late Lee Alexander McQueen, who designed Givenchy from 1996 to 2001, when luxury kingpin Bernard Arnault began revving up European heritage brands with powerful fashion talents.

Burton’s appointment completes a new duo at the brand following the July appointment of Alessandro Valenti as the new chief executive officer. He joined Givenchy from Louis Vuitton, where he was most recently president of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Burton and Valenti will be charged with igniting a renaissance at the storied house, which has lagged the rapid growth charted by the likes of Celine and Loewe, which are also controlled by French luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

“The arrival of Sarah Burton as head of our creative design is a very exciting moment for Givenchy,” Valenti said in the statement.

“Her remarkable career path and creative vision have already won her a vast fan base, and we are certain that under her direction, Givenchy will continue to innovate and captivate an extensive audience across the world stage,” he said. “I eagerly anticipate the new creative energy Sarah will bring as she works alongside our outstanding teams in our exceptional workshops, and we embark on this new chapter in the history of Givenchy.”

Founded in 1952 and owned by LVMH since 1998, the house has seen a number of designers come and go since founder Hubert de Givenchy retired in 1995.

Riccardo Tisci was arguably the most successful of a string of talents who have led Givenchy, bringing heat and stability over a 12-year tenure.

John Galliano was Hubert de Givenchy’s immediate successor and moved on quickly to Christian Dior. Lee Alexander McQueen tried his hand next with eclectic collections — space aliens one season, rockabilly the next.

Julien Macdonald came next, and went back to a style rooted in French elegance and sophistication, but did not win much acclaim.

Tisci was succeeded by British designer Clare Waight Keller, who largely plied a tasteful, aristocratic brand of fashion occasionally spiked with toughness or subversion — a touch of latex here, a giant wing-like backpack there. Her biggest claim to fame during her three-year stint was dressing Meghan Markle for her marriage to Prince Harry in 2018.

(Burton, meanwhile, famously designed the Alexander McQueen wedding gown for Kate Middleton’s marriage to Prince William in 2011, catapulting her profile in the fashion firmament.)

Matthew M. Williams followed Waight Keller, arriving just as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the world. He wound up his three-year collaboration with Givenchy at the end of 2023 after failing to ignite big commercial success or media acclaim, underscoring a trend for shorter tenures at Europe’s heritage brands.

Born in Macclesfield, England, and educated in Manchester, Burton studied print fashion at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London in the late 1990s, and landed at McQueen after one of her instructors, Simon Ungless, introduced her to the incendiary designer in 1996.

He offered her an internship at his design house. After graduating in 1997, Burton became McQueen’s personal assistant and was promoted in 2000 to head of womenswear.

She presented her first collection without the late designer during the spring 2011 season and was applauded for adding a feminine hand to McQueen’s hard-edged aesthetic.

She has long been a go-to designer for many women and men in the creative industries and contemporary art scene, and the Alexander McQueen brand gained heat during the streetwear boom as hype beasts sought out its skull-print scarves and chunky-soled sneakers.

A reserved woman who prefers to toil in the workrooms rather than seek attention for herself, Burton has long been viewed as a bona fide couturier in the vein of the founder, experimenting with cuts, volumes and draping to invent new shapes and attitudes.

At McQueen, she often found inspiration in the Victorian era, in nature, and from research trips across the United Kingdom. Her designs ranged from poetic and frothy in register to stronger, sculptural designs, or ones with punk tinges.

Burton, who was named creative director of Alexander McQueen in 2010 following Lee Alexander McQueen’s suicide, showed her final collection for the house, which was for the spring 2024 season, in October 2023, when she parted ways with the London-based house and its parent Kering.

The low-key designer was named Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2011, was honored in 2012 by the-then Prince Charles with an OBE, or The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire honor, for her services in the fashion industry, and received the International Award from the CFDA.

And last December, Burton was awarded the Special Recognition Award at The Fashion Awards in London, honoring her outstanding contribution to the fashion industry.

Her appointment caps off a protracted search for Williams’ successor, during which time Givenchy scaled back its runway shows for womenswear and menswear, setting out small café tables or benches at its couture salons on the Avenue George V.

It is understood Toledano spearheaded negotiations with Burton, which seems to confirm he is once again implicated in LVMH Fashion Group brands, which is headlined by such marquee names as Celine, Loewe and Givenchy.

In January, LVMH said Michael Burke, whose long career at the group included a stellar 10 years as chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton, would take the helm of LVMH Fashion Group and succeed Toledano, who was to leave the LVMH executive committee and become an adviser to LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault.

It is understood Burke has recently been more implicated in large-scale real estate projects, in addition to other projects at the world’s biggest luxury group.

While nothing has changed officially, LVMH insists, it’s clear responsibilities are shifting between two of Arnault’s most trusted and seasoned executives, who have long extolled the virtues of “management flexibility” within the group.

Duties are also shared with Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou, who in June was named CEO of Fendi, in addition to being managing director of LVMH Fashion Group overseeing Fendi, Kenzo, Marc Jacobs, Pucci, Stella McCartney, Patou and Off-White.