In the months that followed the Spring/Summer 2026 season, we have seen a series of new hires in the communications, marketing and design departments of all major houses. Our new series ‘Fashion’s Real Reset Starts Now’ looks at all these changes and how they will redefine the fashion industry in the years to come.
Over the past two years, Lubomila Jordanova says she has observed a worrying shift in how luxury brands balance profitability, creativity and sustainability. Faced with supply chain disruptions, climate shocks, geopolitical tensions, tariffs and a general downturn in consumption, many have tightened their logoed belts, she explains, pointing to a “KPI fixation” that is strangling the latter two objectives in pursuit of the first. The recent creative director reshuffle has only served to accelerate this.
“This year we have seen the biggest and most complex reshuffle in the relationship between the CEO, the board and the creative director,” says Jordanova, co-founder and CEO of sustainability software company Plan A, and a member of the sustainability advisory board at Chloé. “All of a sudden, the push for profitability is questioning the space for creativity.”
Rather than pushing the boundaries of a brand’s codes and selling a dream, creative directors are often tasked with shoehorning those codes into the “consumables” — bag charms and small leather goods — that increasingly drive revenue, she continues. In line with this new mandate to push profitability, sustainability boards are being dismantled, sustainability teams shut out of design meetings, and sustainability-aligned materials reconsidered or removed in favor of cheaper alternatives — a trend that was already evident in the Vogue Business Sustainability Leaders Survey last May. “Now, the most important fixation is whether something is making money.”
At the individual brand level, a new creative director can signal seismic change for sustainability teams — fresh energy from a committed individual can push progress forward — but an apathetic or antagonistic creative director can easily do the opposite. Faced with such uncertainty, is there anything sustainability teams and their supply chain partners can do to calm the waters? We asked experts to share their playbooks.
Find common ground
In any brand, against any backdrop, it’s a rare alchemy getting the creative director, CEO and sustainability team aligned, but this is what really drives progress. “If sustainability is purely technical — based on materials, environmental footprints and supplier partnerships — it won’t feel alive at the brand or business level. So getting the creative director on board is seen as the holy grail for sustainability teams,” says Elisa Niemtzow, vice president of consumer sectors at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and co-founder of sustainability platform Racine.
If the creative director is on board, it’s much easier for sustainability teams to connect their work with the brand values that drive emotional resonance among consumers, shifting mindsets and behaviors in the process. “Unfortunately, it’s still quite elusive. Sustainability doesn’t tend to be the priority in those first few months of a new creative directorship,” she says.