Tyler, The Creator and Converse are dropping a shorter take on last year’s boot: the Bronco Boot Low, which goes on sale globally on Nov. 12 through both brands’ websites. It leads a wider 1908 collection that also adds new Pro Leather and Jogger colorways, bringing the number of shoes in this release to eight.

What the Bronco Boot Low Changes

The Bronco Boot Low is described as a low-top version of the 1908 Bronco Boot, which the musician introduced with the Nike-owned brand in 2025. The build keeps the rugged character of the original. It combines suede and leather uppers with a molded rubber toe cap, a lugged welted outsole and a rubber rand above the welt.

The finishing touches are where Tyler’s involvement shows. Custom woven round laces replace standard ones, a Le Fleur* lace jewel sits at the bottom eyelet, and a co-branded sock liner completes the look. The shoe comes in four colorways: “Cocoa Brown,” “New Wheat,” “Eden” and “Black.”

Pro Leather and Jogger Round Out the Drop

The boot is the headline, but it isn’t the only release. Two new suede Pro Leather colorways bring a softer finish to a deliberately oversize shoe. Proportions are unchanged, with a wider toe box, oversize eyelet rows, chunky laces and an embossed star across the toe cap. “Tendril” pairs gray suede with lavender overlays, while “Quarry” matches olive suede with a sky-blue Star Chevron.

The Jogger arrives in two saturated, single-tone options, “High Risk Red” and “Golden Haze.” It uses vintage-inspired hairy suede overlays at the toe, eyestay and heel, set against smooth nylon panels. A foam midsole and sawtooth rubber outsole keep the profile low. Golf Le Fleur* branding appears on both side panels and the sockliner, and a woven Converse tongue label finishes the shoe.

A Partnership Now Several Years Deep

The release continues a collaboration that began in 2017 under the Golf Le Fleur* banner. Early on, Tyler reworked Converse icons such as the One Star and the Chuck 70. The 1908 program, launched in 2025, takes a different approach. It draws on more than 115 years of Converse design history, treating the brand’s archive as a starting point for new designs rather than a finished catalog.

The Bronco Boot Low also follows closely on an earlier drop. In October, the pair expanded the Pro Leather lineup with four colorways: “Black,” “Bison,” “Molten Lava” and “White.” Two more Pro Leather options arriving a few weeks later suggests the partnership is releasing on a steady cadence rather than in occasional one-off moments.

Pricing was not included in the announcement details. Anyone planning to buy the Bronco Boot Low or its companions should check the Converse and Golf Le Fleur* sites on Nov. 12 for costs and availability.

File photo: Tyler, The Creator (8048745695) (cropped).jpg by Incase from California, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Skims advent calendar was meant to be a festive treat. Instead it has become one of the week’s biggest online pile-ons, and Kim Kardashian’s shapewear company is now offering refunds to every customer who bought it.

The $148 (£110) accessories calendar promised “twelve days of fun surprises.” Shoppers who opened it found a run of hair ties, hair clips, keychains and similar small items, and many said so loudly on social media.

What was actually inside

According to the BBC’s rundown, the twelve doors held a tartan teddy bear keychain, several packs of hair ties, three Skims-branded hair clips, a Skims “squishy” ornament, beige elastic straps or hair bands, a comb keychain, another Skims keychain and a furry compact mirror keychain. Some coverage described the straps as resembling bra straps, and the Independent and the Daily Mail also mentioned bobby pins.

The product description on the Skims website pitched it as “a dozen reasons to celebrate,” with “a mix of playful items and everyday favorites.” The listing now shows the item as sold out.

How a TikTok unboxing set the tone

The backlash was driven largely by a TikTok unboxing from a creator who posts as @wetsloppyswollen. She opened all twelve doors on camera, her mood souring with each one. At one point she held up a pair of nude straps and asked, “What is this?” She ended by saying the calendar was “way too expensive.”

The video spread fast, though outlets cited different metrics. The Independent reported more than 8.1 million likes, while the Daily Mail reported more than 65 million views. Other creators posted their own unboxings with similar reactions.

Commenters supplied the jokes. Some said the contents looked like what falls between car seats, and one questioned how an underwear brand could produce a calendar with no underwear. Others dubbed it the “Fyre Festival of advent calendars.” One widely repeated complaint was that $150 seemed steep for what one commenter guessed was about $20 of goods. That figure is a viewer’s estimate, not a valuation from Skims or an independent source.

Skims responds with refunds

In statements to several outlets, a Skims spokesperson said the company understood “the calendar didn’t meet expectations” and had “personally contacted every customer who purchased the calendar.” Buyers were offered a choice between a full refund and Skims credit toward other products. The company added that customer feedback would “directly shape how we approach future releases.”

The statement stops short of an apology, which at least one YouTuber said Kardashian should post. The company’s wording, that the calendar fell short “for some,” also frames the reaction as partial rather than universal.

Why value matters more with advent calendars

Market researchers say the pile-on fits a pattern. Kate Vlietstra of Mintel told the BBC that backlash like this has become more common, helped by the trend for unboxing on social media. If buyers feel they haven’t received the value they hoped for, she said, a reaction is “inevitable.”

Helen Wing of Ipsos said advent calendars remain popular, though “the buzz around them has reduced a little bit.” Her research suggests people will pay more for one, provided the contents justify the price. She pointed to Liberty’s £285 calendar, which tells shoppers it holds over £1,000 of products. That reassurance matters, she said, especially when the calendar is bought as a gift.

The Skims advent calendar offered no comparable promise of value, and the unboxing format turned each door into a public verdict on the price.

Not the brand’s first controversy

Skims was co-founded in 2019 by Kardashian, Jens Grede and Emma Grede, and Forbes says it has made Kardashian a billionaire. The company was valued at $5bn in 2025 when it raised new funding. It has drawn criticism before for attention-grabbing products, including a 2023 bra with fake nipples and a thong with faux pubic hair released last year. Those releases got people talking, but this episode is different because paying customers feel shortchanged, and refunds are the company’s answer.

For now, the refund offer limits the financial damage, and the sell-out suggests demand was strong before the reviews came in. The reputational fallout is harder to measure, and it may shape how the brand approaches its next holiday release.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: Kim Kardashian & Kris Jenner MTV Awards.jpg by Nicole Alexander, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Header image: AI-generated illustration by WordUp News.

A GTA 6 jacket priced at £2,500, about $3,356, has sold out after Rockstar Games and Selfridges opened a promotional event for the game. Polygon, citing IGN, reports that the launch queue exceeded 100,000 people and that many products disappeared quickly.

What the GTA 6 jacket is, and why it matters

The item is the “Grand Theft Auto VI Goodtime State Varsity Jacket.” It carries a Rockstar logo and a “VI” on the front. The back reads “Vice City” beside Macca the Gator, a flamingo in sunglasses and a purple lowrider. Its price is far above what most game merchandise costs, yet it sold out anyway.

The jacket is one of more than 60 GTA 6-themed items on offer. The range also includes basketballs, mugs and luggage tags, and many pieces are sold exclusively at Selfridges. When the store opened, it also temporarily sold the merchandise online.

A pop-up built like a game world

The event is installed at Selfridges’ 400 Oxford Street location in London. It features a Grotti Cheetah Classic painted in the game’s blue-and-pink palette and a statue of a Leonida alligator. Other Vice City-themed props tease the game’s setting. The effort goes well beyond a typical product tie-in and works more like a piece of marketing theatre.

It also fits a pattern. Rockstar has already sold a $400 collector’s edition that does not include the game itself. The game costs at least $79.99. Taken together, the merchandise and the queue suggest the company is confident fans will pay premium prices for anything carrying the GTA 6 name.

Launch week is here

The timing is deliberate. GTA 6 arrives on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles on Nov. 19, and Polygon expects it to become one of the best-selling games of all time. Preloading began earlier today for players in New Zealand. In the United States, it opens on Xbox and PlayStation between this afternoon and midnight.

Rockstar has said the game will take up to 212 GB, with audio alone accounting for 22 GB. Data miners have already begun combing through the preload files. One reported a variable called “launchMultiplayerActivity,” which suggests GTA Online could eventually come to the new game. That is an inference from a file name, not a confirmation from Rockstar.

The sources do not say how many units of the jacket were available, how many were sold, or whether it will be restocked. Even so, the sell-out is a telling data point. A garment that costs more than many used cars’ monthly payments, per the price alone, cleared the shelves while a six-figure queue formed. For Rockstar, the GTA 6 jacket doubles as proof that the hype around the game is still at full strength.

Header image: AI-generated illustration by WordUp News.

Nicole Kidman’s tattered-tulle Chanel gown, a nod to a Degas sculpture, emerged as the most talked-about look at the LACMA gala, held on November 7 in Los Angeles. It was one of 43 red-carpet moments Vogue singled out, while Harper’s Bazaar narrowed its own list to ten.

The annual Art + Film event raises money for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s film initiatives, exhibitions, acquisitions and educational programs. This year it was co-chaired by Leonardo DiCaprio and museum trustee Eva Chow. Artist Vija Celmins and filmmaker Denis Villeneuve received special honours. Gucci, the event’s longtime supporter, was everywhere on the carpet.

Kidman’s Chanel Ties Fashion to the Museum

Harper’s called Kidman’s dress perhaps the most fitting look of the night. It comes from Matthieu Blazy’s Spring 2027 collection for Chanel. The bodice is designed to resemble burlap, and the layered tulle skirt has darker panels that make it look aged and worn. The design references Degas’s 1881 sculpture “Little Dancer of Fourteen Years.” Harper’s argued that it captured what the evening celebrates: a movie star, a historic French fashion house and a canonical Impressionist artist in one outfit.

Gucci Dominates the LACMA Gala Red Carpet

Gucci’s presence was hard to miss. Vogue’s gallery credits the label with dozens of looks, including Kim Kardashian, Viola Davis, Sarah Paulson, Sienna Miller, Salma Hayek-Pinault, Emily Ratajkowski, Andrew Garfield and Villeneuve himself.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley wore a slinky black backless gown with a slit up the back rather than the front. She had walked in the brand’s Spring 2027 show. Harper’s noted that Demna, who designed the collection, said he was proudest of the structure of its jersey dresses, which are light but engineered to hang precisely.

Other models from that runway also attended. Alex Consani wore a dramatically twisted, full-skirted gown. Elsa Hosk chose gray wool with a thigh-high slit, and Candice Swanepoel wore full-length silver fringe with slits up to the hips.

Beyond Gucci: Vintage, Couture and Playful Experiments

Harper’s said guests leaned into play this year, and the non-Gucci standouts showed it. Anya Taylor-Joy, styled by Law Roach, drew on the Pierre Cardin archives. She wore a vintage 1997 piece, an embroidered silvery-white slip with a ruffled organza evening coat. Kylie Jenner wore Ashi Studio, a halter-neck gown with an allover deer-like animal print and an oversized tassel at the back. Julia Garner chose a sculptural black taffeta Loewe gown with oversized Lisa Eisner earrings.

Vogue’s longer list shows how wide the field ran. Rosé wore Saint Laurent, and Paris Hilton wore Jenny Packham. Brittany Snow chose vintage Ralph Lauren, and Olivia Munn wore vintage Mugler. Aurora James wore Rodarte, Ashley Park wore Prabal Gurung and Benito Skinner wore ERL.

What the Night Says About Red-Carpet Dressing

Brand sponsorship shaped the evening, but the most memorable looks often stepped outside it. Archive pieces from Cardin, Mugler and Ralph Lauren sat beside new collections from Chanel and Loewe. The LACMA gala has long mixed art, film and fashion, and the standout looks this year made the connection explicit, most clearly Kidman’s Degas reference.

Harper’s top ten also included Quenlin Blackwell, Sienna Miller and Devon Lee Carlson in Gucci, and Rosé in Saint Laurent. Vogue’s gallery, which runs well past those names, is the fuller record of the night.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

The Kylie Minogue Chanel look at the brand’s Sydney Cruise 2027 presentation was a lesson in restraint: a soft, cream-on-cream outfit anchored by one of the house’s best-known shoes. The singer attended the Thursday event, which marked the first time Sydney has hosted a Chanel cruise show.

Inside the Kylie Minogue Chanel Outfit

Minogue wore an ivory button-down cardigan with a midi-skirt in a slightly lighter white. A multi-strand belt of leather and gold chain hung loosely at her waist, the most overtly “Chanel” flourish in an otherwise understated outfit. She kept her makeup natural and carried a clutch tucked under her right arm.

The shoes did the talking. She chose Chanel’s two-toned pumps in a shade described as mascarpone, with slingback straps, a block heel and the black cap toe that gives the style its identity. Footwear News called the look elegantly professional, and the tonal palette kept attention on that contrast at the toe.

Why Sydney, and Why Now

Chanel’s cruise line goes back more than a century. Coco Chanel launched it in 1919 to give wealthy women out-of-season clothes for holidays in warmer climates. Today the brand typically stages a large show in spring and a smaller repeat in early fall.

This year’s spring outing took place in the French seaside resort of Biarritz in April, the first time creative director Matthieu Blazy presented the 2027 cruise line. The Sydney event was the repeat. Last year’s was in Singapore. The city also has a retail case: eight of Chanel’s Australian boutiques are located there. The show came just before the collection was due in stores.

A Strong Australian Guest List

Minogue was not the only local star in the room. Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman, a Chanel ambassador, also attended, which made the evening something of an Australian celebrity showcase for the label.

For a brand built on heritage, the Kylie Minogue Chanel appearance shows how well a few classic pieces can work together. The cardigan, skirt, chain belt and cap-toe slingbacks are all familiar elements of the house’s vocabulary, and wearing them in a single quiet colour story let the details stand out. At a show meant to promote a new collection, one of the evening’s most talked-about shoes was among the house’s oldest.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: Kylie Minogue 01.jpg by QuentinCurran, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Iowa’s governor-elect has a résumé item that few politicians can match: the Rob Sand modeling career, which took him from a Brown University dorm to runways in Milan more than twenty years ago. Sand, a Democrat, defeated Republican Zach Lahn on Tuesday, and within a day the fashion press had resurfaced his past.

From Brown University to the Milan runway

According to WWD, Sand modeled while studying political science at Brown in the early 2000s, and he walked for Prada, Giuliano Fujiwara and the Japanese label Number (N)ine. His Prada appearance was in the spring 2003 menswear show, presented in Milan on Aug. 1, 2002. WWD describes that collection as a mix of traditional tailoring and unconventional proportions: gray suits, belted trench coats, gold floral brocade trousers and lightweight T-shirts.

The work was not limited to the catwalk. WWD lists editorial credits tied to Arena Homme+, Vogue Italia and AnOther, including a 2002 shoot photographed by Terry Richardson. Vogue pinpoints one of them as AnOther Magazine’s fall 2002 “young punk” spread, titled “Adolescents.” Harper’s Bazaar, citing Newsweek, adds that he was reportedly signed to IMG Models, though it says his profile on the agency’s site appears to have been removed.

The caucus he skipped for a fashion job

The best-known story from the Rob Sand modeling career is also a political one. In January 2004, Sand missed the Iowa Democratic caucuses in his hometown of Decorah. He had hoped to support presidential candidate Howard Dean, but he was in Milan modeling menswear. “It had to be one or the other,” he told Newsweek in 2022. “And I chose to go to Europe.”

For a politician now headed to the governor’s office, it is an unusual trade-off. Missing the caucus in Iowa, where the first presidential contest carries real weight, is a notable cost for a young political enthusiast.

A past he rarely discusses

Despite the attention now, the sources agree that Sand does not often bring up this chapter. Vogue, citing a 2019 New York Times profile, says it is not a period he publicly revisits, and Harper’s Bazaar echoes that. Vogue’s writer also notes how little detailed information about the period exists. Harper’s Bazaar said Sand’s team had not responded to its request for comment.

Bazaar goes a step further, saying he helped pay for his degrees by modeling. That claim appears only in that outlet, and WWD simply calls it a brief but impressive college side gig.

What came next

The rest of the biography is conventional. Sand earned his law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2010, then began a legal career. He was elected state auditor in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Harper’s Bazaar reports that he also earned a Truman scholarship at Brown and says his 2026 campaign centered on anti-corruption, bipartisanship, affordable living and public education.

The fashion world has had fun with the story. Vogue joked that his quarter-zips and button-downs are now “a bit more gubernatorial” than his runway wardrobe, while WWD framed him as the latest in a line of American politicians with fashion résumés. Still, the Rob Sand modeling career is a footnote to the real news. A former auditor who once skipped a caucus for a Milan show is now the governor-elect of Iowa.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

File photo: Rob Sand For Iowa 2 (cropped) (cropped).jpg by Rob Sand for Governor, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Header image: AI-generated illustration by WordUp News.

The Harper’s Bazaar UK Women of the Year ceremony returned to Claridge’s in London on Thursday 5 November, handing out eleven honours to figures from film, television, theatre, fashion, art and sport. The evening mixed Hollywood glamour with British comic timing, and the speeches had as much impact as the gowns.

The Women of the Year winners at a glance

Glenn Close took the headline Icon Award, presented by Harper’s Bazaar UK editor-in-chief Lydia Slater. It recognised a five-decade career spent playing complex, challenging women. Mikey Madison was named Film Actress of the Year for her Oscar-winning role in Anora and her portrayal of a real-life whistleblower in The Social Reckoning. Cate Blanchett won Theatre Actress, presented by Elizabeth Debicki, for her dual-role performance in the National Theatre’s Electra/Persona.

Claudia Winkleman collected Television Icon, days after the final of The Celebrity Traitors aired. Bella Maclean won Breakthrough, and Amelia Dimoldenberg, host of Chicken Shop Date, received the Innovator Award. Sarah Burton of Givenchy won Designer, and Sam Taylor-Johnson was named Artist of the Year. Stephanie Cavalli won Model of the Year after a year in which she became a symbol of age inclusivity in fashion.

Sprinter Dina Asher-Smith received the Sporting Inspiration Award for her record-breaking run at the European Championships. National Theatre leaders Indhu Rubasingham and Kate Varah shared the Change-Maker Award for championing new voices and broadening access to British theatre.

Laughter, tears and a tribute to Jilly Cooper

The ceremony’s most affecting moment came from Maclean. Her Rivals co-star Alex Hassell presented her award with affectionate teasing, and she responded with a tearful tribute to the late Dame Jilly Cooper, the author of the source novel. She thanked Cooper for a role that launched her career and a character that made her reflect on how she wants to show up in the world.

Winkleman’s win was the comic high point. Her friend, the author Emma Freud, delivered a mock-insulting introduction about her fringe and her wardrobe. Winkleman then joked that she had become so absorbed in filming that she briefly forgot she had a child at home. “He’ll never see this,” she added, deadpan.

Asher-Smith struck a more serious note. She spoke about the many sides of female athletes, who she said are too often seen as little more than smaller versions of male competitors.

What the guests wore

Accounts of the red carpet differ on some details. The Standard described Blanchett in a constellation-print Mary Katrantzou gown, while the Daily Mail called her dress blue with an intricately painted, artwork-style skirt. Both agree it was among the night’s showstoppers. The Standard put Madison in a strapless Dior gown, whereas the Mail described a pale grey dress.

Isla Fisher was another standout, though outlets described her look differently: lace cap sleeves, short sleeves and fringed sleeves all appear in the coverage. Cat Deeley wore a bell-sleeved, 1970s-inspired dress with a chain-link belt. Holly Willoughby wore an Alexander McQueen blazer mini dress, and Winkleman chose a tailored black blazer and boots. Other guests included Lesley Manville, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Annabelle Wallis, Letitia Wright and Taylor Russell.

A sister event to the US Icons night

The UK ceremony is separate from Harper’s Bazaar’s US Icons event, whose honourees this year included Céline Dion and Charlotte Rampling. The British event was held in partnership with The Platinum Card by American Express for a third consecutive year. According to the Mirror, it is one year short of its 20th anniversary, which suggests a milestone edition in 2027. Slater said the awards have “a rich heritage of recognising the inspirational women whose achievements are shaping contemporary culture.”

This year’s Women of the Year list favoured performers, but the Change-Maker and Sporting Inspiration awards, along with the Model and Designer honours, widened its scope beyond the screen.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

Header image: AI-generated illustration by WordUp News.

Balenciaga has named London designer Martine Rose as its new creative director, ending weeks of rumor and giving the house its first woman in the top creative job in 109 years. She starts on November 16, one day short of two weeks after the departure of Pierpaolo Piccioli was announced. Piccioli’s exit came just a day before Rose’s confirmation, and the speed of the handover suggests the house had a successor lined up well in advance.

A homecoming, not a debut

Rose’s return to Balenciaga is not her first time inside the building. When Demna took over the label in 2015, he hired her as a menswear consultant. She stayed until 2018 and, by several accounts, helped shape the oversized tailoring, boxy cuts, and exaggerated proportions that defined the brand’s early streetwear-inflected identity. Vogue’s Sarah Mower, who observed the pair at work, describes Demna as a long-distance admirer who found Rose’s early presentations online. This time Rose is running the whole operation rather than advising on one part of it.

It is also the first time she has led a major fashion house. That is striking given her influence. Rose launched her own label in 2007, after a short-lived T-shirt line called LMNOP in 2002, and built it through London’s Fashion East incubator. Since then she has worked with Nike, Clarks, Supreme, Stüssy, and Tommy Hilfiger, and her clothes have been worn by Kendrick Lamar, Timothée Chalamet, and Rihanna.

Why the choice resonates

Coverage of the announcement is unusually warm. Harper’s Bazaar calls it a welcome break from the same few names that tend to circulate for big creative director jobs. Vogue says the wait for a designer of Rose’s standing to be given a luxury platform has gone on “far, far too long.” Her work is rooted in what she has called an “observational” approach: watching how people really dress, then stretching, shrinking, or twisting garments until the familiar looks new. Her references include rave, football casuals, reggae, queer culture, and the Jamaican-British household she grew up in.

Her fans argue that some of her once-odd silhouettes later became ordinary. Rose herself has recalled that people reacted badly to her oversized shapes in 2013, only for those proportions to spread across menswear.

Both Harper’s and Vogue also place the news in a wider context. Most big luxury houses are led by white men, and Rose’s appointment, like the excitement around Grace Wales Bonner at Hermès, is read as recognition for women of color whose work has shaped fashion without always earning credit.

The job ahead

Rose inherits a house still searching for its footing. Cristóbal Balenciaga founded it in 1917 in San Sebastián and was celebrated for sculptural volume and silhouette. Demna left in 2025 for Gucci. Piccioli arrived that year with a brief to honor the house’s sculptural elegance without losing the streetwear fans Demna had cultivated. His tenure is reported as either 16 months or three seasons, depending on the outlet, but all agree it was short.

The obvious question is whether a designer known mainly for menswear can handle womenswear and accessories, which are central to a house of this size. Mower points to Rose’s long-standing interest in gender play, and in “a woman in men’s clothes, a man in women’s clothes,” as a sign she can. Nothing in the coverage settles it, and the house has not said when her first collection will appear.

In a statement, Rose called the role “a true privilege” and promised to honor the house’s legacy while creating “the next chapter.” Kering CEO Luca de Meo said she brings a “fresh, fearless and deeply contemporary vision” and a connection to a new generation. For a brand that has wobbled between its couture roots and its street-style fame, the bet is that its next Balenciaga creative director understands both.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.

Header image: AI-generated illustration by WordUp News.

The Piccioli Balenciaga exit is now official. Kering announced on Thursday that Pierpaolo Piccioli is stepping down as creative director of the house, ending a tenure of roughly 16 months counted from his July 2025 start date. A successor, the company said, will be named “shortly.”

The departure brings to an end one of the most closely watched appointments of the last fashion reshuffle. Piccioli arrived after a quarter-century at Valentino, and he took over a house that his predecessor, Demna, had spent a decade turning into a streetwear-adjacent giant. Measured against that history, three or so seasons was never much time to prove a new vision.

What the announcement says

The statements from Kering and Balenciaga were warm. Kering CEO Luca de Meo called Piccioli “an exceptional couturier and creative talent” and said the group wants to build on Balenciaga’s “avant-garde spirit.” Balenciaga CEO Gianfranco Gianangeli credited him with reaffirming the house’s couture origins through his approach to craftsmanship and construction. Neither statement gave a reason for the split. Piccioli himself offered no comment, according to British GQ.

The news did not land out of nowhere. Rumours about his future began circulating on social media in September, and Kering’s chief financial officer declined to comment on them when asked during the group’s third-quarter update, British Vogue reported.

A mixed creative report card

Piccioli was named in May 2025 and began that July, after Demna’s final couture show. His first ready-to-wear collection, shown in Paris last October, reworked Cristóbal Balenciaga’s sack dress. It paired bright gowns and sculptural skirts with leather jackets, chinos and T-shirts, a deliberate attempt to nod to both the founder and the streetwear audience Demna cultivated. Meghan Markle attended in a custom ivory look, and the reception was described as measured praise.

His second show, in March, drew a more mixed response. Vogue Runway’s Sarah Mower said his famous colour sense and sense of joy had not shown up in a darker collection. His couture debut in July put the atelier front and centre, and Mower noted his mastery of colour was evident there. Reviewing his spring/summer 2027 show in October, she observed that he was having to work out, in real time, where he stood between Cristóbal’s couture legacy and Demna’s satirical street-style legacy. Harper’s Bazaar described that spring 2027 lineup as elevated, voluminous takes on familiar pieces like a T-shirt and jeans.

Celebrities embraced the work. Ariana Grande, Rosalía and Demi Moore all wore his designs on red carpets, and Tessa Thompson was among his fans.

The business backdrop to the Piccioli Balenciaga exit

The commercial picture is harder to read. Kering does not break out sales for individual brands apart from Gucci, so the figures here are estimates. Morgan Stanley put Balenciaga’s 2025 sales at €1.47 billion, down from €1.65 billion a year earlier. Under Demna, the house had grown from about €360 million in 2015.

Kering’s own commentary tracked a cooling. The first quarter of 2026 showed growth, driven by leather goods. The second quarter was called “more challenging,” and the third was described as challenging too. CFO Armelle Poulou said leather goods were performing very well, citing the City and Rodeo bags and the newly launched Hourglass Avenue, while ready-to-wear and shoes were suffering and needed new lines and products.

That matters because de Meo, who became Kering CEO about two months after Piccioli’s appointment, has set ambitious targets. At the group’s April 2026 Capital Markets Day, he said Balenciaga understands “the vibes of the new generation,” and goals include doubling women’s ready-to-wear, accelerating leather goods and doubling business in the Americas, all by 2030. None of the sources link Piccioli’s departure directly to these numbers, but the timing makes the strategic questions hard to ignore.

Kering’s growing list of vacancies

Balenciaga is not Kering’s only open seat. Saint Laurent and McQueen have yet to name creative directors following the exits of Anthony Vaccarello and Seán McGirr. Demna, meanwhile, has moved on to Gucci, where his high-profile debut included a New York show earlier this year.

Harper’s Bazaar framed Piccioli’s brief tenure as symptomatic of an industry in which creative-director shake-ups have become routine, and in which the pressure to deliver an identity almost instantly is intense. Whether his successor gets more runway, literally and figuratively, may depend on how Kering answers a question this exit leaves open: whether Balenciaga should lean into its couture heritage or its more provocative, youth-driven recent past. Piccioli’s next move has not been announced.

Header image: AI-generated illustration by WordUp News.

Fashion has a problem with the word brown. This season’s most talked-about colour is being sold as espresso, chestnut, cacao, ganache, truffle, mocha, caramel and hazelnut, and almost no one wants to use the plain name. Yet according to Guardian fashion columnist Jess Cartner-Morley, deep, glossy chocolate brown is probably the chicest thing you can wear right now.

From wheelie bins to the catwalk

The rebrand is needed because brown has never had glamour on its side. Red suggests passion, black suggests chic, pink romance and blue serenity. Brown, Cartner-Morley jokes, is the colour of wheelie bins. Its history explains the stigma. Brown dyes and raw brown cloth were cheap, practical and good at hiding dirt, so the shade became associated with poverty. The urban poor of ancient Rome were known as pullati, literally “those dressed in brown”, and medieval English sumptuary laws confined peasants to russet, a coarse reddish-brown fabric.

Traces of that attitude linger, she suggests, in the way brown still feels grounded and real. It had an earlier fashion moment in the 1970s, when it seemed earthy and authentic after the theatrical 1960s. Today it tends to turn up at the more alternative labels rather than the razzle-dazzle ones. There is little of it at Versace, but brown and green is very Marni, and Prada has long loved it as part of its “ugly chic” vocabulary, precisely because it is not an obviously pretty colour.

Why chocolate brown, and why now?

The edible vocabulary is probably no accident. When Pantone named Mocha Mousse its colour of 2025, it tied brown’s popularity to the “food-ification” of culture, the idea that coffee and chocolate are small, affordable comforts in anxious times. Food has become lifestyle content, and the bakery something close to a cultural institution, with younger consumers queuing for particular croissants and debating online where the best ones are made.

Cartner-Morley admits that colour trends rarely have one tidy origin story, but they do capture a mood. Chocolate brown is cosier than jolly, luxurious rather than flashy, nostalgic without being sugary. It is also emphatically analogue: a smartphone is never brown, while leather, wood, coffee, earth and suede all are. In her reading, it is the colour of real life offline, which may be why it is having an aspirational moment.

How to wear brown this autumn

Her simplest advice is to substitute it wherever you would normally reach for black. Boots, handbags, trousers and coats are categories where black feels like a no-brainer, but swapping in chocolate brown makes the same outfit look more considered. Her examples include chocolate leather boots with jeans and a navy jumper, or a dark-brown handbag with a grey coat.

There are practical arguments too. Brown, she says, is less draining against many skin tones than grey, and less corporate than navy. It pairs well with black and with colour, and is “terrific” with pale blue, butter yellow, pale pink or burgundy. Mixing different browns, such as conker with caramel and espresso, also works.

The takeaway is that the trend does not demand a new wardrobe, just a rethink of the black default. A colour long linked with thrift and practicality has become, for now, the quiet signal of an outfit that looks chosen rather than reflexive.

Explore more on this topic with Vexel Search.