Fall 2024 was the season the leadership reshuffles of the prior two years finally settled into actual collections you could buy. Sabato De Sarno’s second full Gucci show in Milan in September moved the brand’s new vocabulary forward. Phoebe Philo’s second e-commerce drop expanded the namesake brand’s actual product range. John Galliano’s January 2024 Maison Margiela couture would, in retrospect, prove to be his last — he departed the house in December 2024 — and the Fall 2024 ready-to-wear felt like a transitional moment we wouldn’t fully understand until later. Daniel Lee was on his third Burberry. Pharrell was on his second womenswear adjacency at Louis Vuitton. The collective effect was a season where the headlines were less about new appointments and more about what these designers were actually doing now that they’d had time to settle.
Sabato De Sarno’s Gucci pulled into focus
De Sarno’s second full Gucci ready-to-wear in Milan refined the language he’d introduced a year earlier. Ancora Red persisted as the house’s signature color story. Cropped tailoring, narrow trousers, a heavier emphasis on outerwear. The Jackie 1961 bag continued its return to focus; the GG Marmont quietly stepped back from the front of the lineup. Critics were warmer than the prior season — the consensus had begun to settle into “this is what Gucci is now, and it works.” The takeaway: a creative-director transition at a $9-billion brand needs about three full seasons before customers and editors absorb the new vocabulary, and De Sarno was on track.
John Galliano’s Margiela ran on a thinner cushion than we knew
The Maison Margiela Spring 2024 couture from January had been the most-watched runway moment of the year. By the time Galliano showed the brand’s Fall 2024 ready-to-wear lineup at Maison Margiela in late winter and the pre-fall presentations followed in spring, the collections were quieter, more wearable, less viral. Hindsight tells us why: Galliano was reportedly already in conversations about his exit by the back half of 2024 (announced December 2024). The Fall 2024 collection in retrospect feels like a designer winding down a creative thesis rather than starting a new one. The takeaway: Margiela without Galliano is a different brand, and we’d have spent more time at his shows this season if we’d known.
Phoebe Philo’s second drop confirmed the thesis
Phoebe Philo’s second e-commerce drop landed late summer and ran through fall, expanding the namesake brand’s offering into more substantial outerwear, real evening pieces, and a tighter range of jewellery. Pricing remained steep — coats in the $5,000-12,000 range, but the brand had clearly identified its customer and was not interested in expanding past her. The conversation around the brand had moved from “will Philo do anything we recognize” to “is there a way to be on the wait list,” which is where any luxury brand wants the discourse to land. The takeaway: a measured launch from a generational designer — slow, controlled, expensive — beats a triumphant department-store rollout every time.
Burberry’s third Daniel Lee collection found its voice
Daniel Lee’s Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear at Burberry in February felt more confident than the first two. The equestrian-inflected coats, the Knight bag continuing to expand, the heavier emphasis on cashmere — by this collection the house’s new direction was no longer being asked to justify itself. The wider Burberry strategy of moving upmarket continued to be debated, but the creative was no longer the question. The takeaway: a designer’s third collection at a heritage house is usually the one where the language hardens, and Lee’s third did.
American sportswear remembered who it was
At NYFW, the most-watched American collections were notably back to fundamentals. Proenza Schouler in its post-McCollough era looked tighter and more commercial than it had in years. Tory Burch doubled down on the controlled-modernism direction she’d been refining. Coach under Stuart Vevers continued the cottagecore-meets-leather thesis. Michael Kors ran a strong commercial show with high-profile dressing. The takeaway: New York’s strength has always been wearable sportswear at a price point, and Fall 2024 was the season the city’s brands stopped trying to compete on Paris-level drama and leaned back into what made them successful.
What we are watching for the rest of fall
Paris Fashion Week ran the back half of Fall 2024 show season through early October — we’re tracking who the surprise breakouts are, what happens at Celine under Hedi Slimane (whose tenure has been a quiet long arc that may be approaching a transition), and how Balenciaga under Demna continues to recover narrative ground after the difficulties of late 2022. We’re also watching the resort and pre-fall delivery cycles, which have become increasingly important to the houses’ actual revenue lines. We’ll see you back here in December for the winter jewellery roundup.