SHOW ME THE RETURN TO THE MONEY
- By KRISTOPHER FRASER
- 12 AUGUST 2025
- 7 Min
Photo: Courtesy of Calvin Klein
In 2015, Dior announced that its acclaimed creative director, Raf Simons, would be stepping away from the brand after a three-and-a-half-year stint. At the time, Simons said he wanted to focus on his eponymous label, and the departure was seemingly amicable.
By 2016, Calvin Klein Inc. had hired Simons as its chief creative brand officer. Simons brought a certain high-fashion flair to the brand, unlike anything that had ever been seen before. Under his creative directorship, Calvin Klein Collection was rebranded as Calvin Klein 205W39NYC, after the brand’s headquarters address. Although Simons’ designs for Calvin Klein were met with much appreciation and respect by the fashion industry, his high-fashion vision was a bit too much for the average Calvin Klein customer.
By 2018, Simons and Calvin Klein had parted ways, and rather than make another attempt at a high-fashion director, the brand went back to what it did best: jeans and underwear. As of June 2025, PVH, the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, reported that their revenues were up 2 percent year-on-year to $1.98 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2025.
This follows Calvin Klein’s May 2024 announcement that Veronica Leoni would assume the role of creative director for Calvin Klein Collection. Leoni debuted her first collection for the brand for Fall 2025, which was one of the most anticipated shows of New York Fashion Week. Although it didn’t quite generate the expected excitement, Leoni’s debut collection featured a return to the ‘90s minimalism that helped make Calvin Klein hugely popular. Leoni experimented with workday silhouettes, tailoring, and sportswear to create a highly relatable collection that felt like an update from Calvin Klein’s archives.
As the fashion industry moves forward, it worries about the effects of Trump’s tariffs, the global economic downturn, and cost-of-living crises in major American and European cities. Like any business, it must figure out how to keep making money despite the obstacles it faces. In a struggling economy, many fashion brands are simply returning to what originally made them successful.
Calvin Klein is one of the earlier brands to prove that sticking to what worked the first time around might be the best formula for weathering this economic crisis. As it has poured its focus into jeans and underwear, and taken a minimalist turn for its higher-end Collection brand, things are looking optimistic for Calvin Klein.
Photo: Courtesy of Celine
Seeing the success of Calvin Klein’s return to what made it the multi-billion-dollar company it is today, other brands are starting to take notice. In October 2024, Celine announced that its creative director, Hedi Slimane, would part ways with the brand. All eyes were on the label as the fashion industry waited to see who would take over one of the most coveted positions in the fashion world.
In May 2025, Michael Rider was announced as the brand’s new creative director. Rider had worked under one of Celine’s former creative directors, Phoebe Philo, who helmed the brand for ten years and is credited with quadrupling its sales. Under Philo, Celine became known as a pinnacle of luxury and French minimalism. She was also the genius behind the Celine Phantom bag, which became one of the label’s best-sellers.
While Slimane brought a more rock’n’roll edge and streetwear-influenced aesthetic to Celine, Rider returned the brand to the elevated minimalism and clean silhouettes that it had become known for under Philo. The consensus in the fashion industry was that Rider was Philo’s rightful heir.
As LVMH navigates a challenging luxury market, it is reaching back to its old ways—namely, the customers under Philo’s Celine, who helped the brand’s sales skyrocket many years ago. While Rider’s designs aren’t a reinvention of Celine’s archives, his work as a senior designer under Philo has been revived and brought to Celine’s artistic forefront.
Celine isn’t the only French house returning to its tried-and-true formula. In April 2016, fashion designer Anthony Vaccarello was appointed creative director of Saint Laurent. For years, Vaccarello continued Saint Laurent’s rock’n’roll aesthetic—one that Slimane, his predecessor, had helped popularize. In Spring 2025, though, there was a noticeable shift in Saint Laurent’s aesthetic.
The brand had returned to a Parisian chic look with sharp tailoring, blending masculine and feminine elements with suiting, for a collection that looked as if Yves Saint Laurent himself had been revived from the grave to design it. It was a Saint Laurent for a new era, borrowing from a bygone one. It was a collection that Laurent would’ve been proud of, smiling down from heaven.
While fashion tends to look forward, sometimes you have to look back to realize where you should go next. Earlier this year, Balenciaga announced that former Valentino creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli would become the brand’s new creative director. Piccioli’s first collection for Balenciaga will be unveiled in October. Looking ahead, fashion critics are expecting Piccioli’s Balenciaga to return the brand to an era of bold shapes, opulent gowns, and elegant simplicity. This is a complete pivot from the aesthetic of former creative director Demna Gvasalia, which was heavily gimmick-focused, featuring things like handbags designed to look like trash bags and ruined sneakers with four-figure price tags.
Meanwhile, Gucci—also owned by luxury conglomerate Kering, like Balenciaga—has appointed Gvasalia as its creative director. This comes after Sabato De Sarno’s tenure, during which he attempted to create a modern version of the Tom Ford aesthetic that made Gucci a household name in the ‘90s. Kering seems to have decided it’s time for a new experiment.
While brands are returning to tried-and-true formulas to weather the luxury downturn, it’s out with the old and in with…the old, but updated. It’s safe to call many of these revived aesthetics a comeback.