Last week I went on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour to discuss the succession drama at Chanel, where Virginie Viard — its creative director of the past five years, since Karl Lagerfeld’s death — has just stepped down from the role. It’s the biggest job in fashion and its vacancy has caused quite the furore over who might step into those two-tone ballet flats. Arguably, they’ll more likely be in a loafer.
Hysteria abounds across the industry and a flurry of names are being touted as contenders, from Hedi Slimane, Pier Paolo Piccioli and Marc Jacobs to former Alexander McQueen head Sarah Burton and fellow Brit Phoebe Philo. The reality is that high-profile gigs in fashion have a tendency to go to men, who also tend to run the upper C-suite echelons of these megabrands.
