The last look went down a gold runway across the river from the Eiffel Tower. Then Anthony Vaccarello handed a key to his young son in the audience. It read like a goodbye, and it was. Ten days later Kering (KER in Paris) confirmed that Saint Laurent's designer of 10 years is leaving. The Journal's Chantal Fernandez lists it among the season's big moments in her Runway Rundown.
Kering owns Saint Laurent, Gucci and Bottega Veneta. The paper says the timing is delicate. By its account the company had only begun to climb out of a slump that ran for years. No successor is named in the story. No sales or profit figure is printed either, and we won't supply one from memory.
Gucci is the other half of the picture. Demna, who came from Balenciaga and Vetements and is known for stunts, joined last year to revive a big brand hurt by years of weak sales. For his latest show he staged a make-believe Gucci store. The models were socialites and influencers. The Journal's read is that it's fun to watch and divisive, and still short of the selling power Gucci had under Alessandro Michele and Tom Ford. So Kering is swapping the designer at one house while another house is still mid-reset.
What's new since Oct. 7
Our Oct. 7 piece looked at luxury stocks trading at a steep discount to fast fashion. The engine, we said, is the customer's bank balance, and it's been sputtering. This weekend's news is about the other engine, the designer. A year after more than a dozen houses swapped creative directors, the paper names winners. Chanel under Matthieu Blazy and Dries Van Noten under Julian Klausner. The new look is loud, playful and handmade, it says, and quiet luxury is on the way out. Neither winner it names is a Kering house.
Our read
This is Investments and Risk (IN04), and the risk is a person. A luxury house's sales can ride on one creative director. Change him, and the product, the customers and the mood can all change with him. Kering is doing that at Saint Laurent while Gucci is still working through a reset of its own. The first signs of a recovery aren't a recovery. They're a reason to watch. Kering isn't in any of our model books. The only exposure is indirect, through a Europe index fund, VGK, held at weight in 11 books. Nothing added.
The lesson travels well beyond fashion. Any business you own a piece of has a key person somewhere. A founder, a top salesperson, a designer. Ask who holds the key, and what happens on the day he hands it over. For owners of small businesses that's a succession question, and it belongs on paper before anyone leaves. It's an ordinary item for a review, best asked while the key is still in hand.