As predicted, Sarah Burton will join Givenchy

Sarah Burton at her final McQueen show last September. Screen shot: alexandermcqueen/YouTube

In the movement of fashion’s key players among brands, invariably known as “musical chairs”, speculations are rarely just that. Givenchy has not had a designer helm the brand since the end of 2023 after 1017 ALYX 9SM founder, the American, Matthew Williams, left. And the rumour since Sarah Jane Burton stepped down from Alexander McQueen, has been that she will go to Givenchy. The house finally announced that Ms Burton will be joining them as their eighth designer and only second female couturier after Claire Waight Keller, who has secured a permanent position at Uniqlo. Ms Burton’s accepting of the LVMH brand’s offer suggests that she is not quite able to step away from the path taken by Mr McQueen, who joined Givenchy in 1996, and left after 18 collections, in 2001.

But unlike Mr Mcqueen’t appointment at Givenchy, Ms Burton’s would not turn out to be as contentious as it was for her former design boss. With 26 years at Alexander McQueen and 13 as their creative director, she had been an uncontroversial designer, quick to find her stride, generally staying governable, and happily designing fetching ensembles for the Princess of Wales. Givenchy would find in the 50-year-old Cheshire-born a competent creative director, possibly less one-note than Virginie Viard was at Chanel and a tad more zestful than Gabriela Hearst at Chloe. Yet, looking at her body of work for McQueen (not entirely the stuff that might spur Andrew Bolton to come calling for the Metropolitan Museum), it is hard to say what needed perturbation she would bring to the slumbering Givenchy. But one could certainly hope.