Nicolas Ghesquière

Born in Comines in 1971 and raised in Loudun, Nicolas Ghesquière interned at agnès b. and Corinne Cobson before joining Jean Paul Gaultier, then took over Balenciaga in 1997 at just twenty-five. Over fifteen years he turned the dormant Cristóbal house into the late-1990s and 2000s axis of forward fashion, fusing futurist tailoring, Lego-tab Lariat motorcycle bags, and sci-fi silhouettes into a defining aesthetic of the era. After leaving Balenciaga in 2012, he was named artistic director of Louis Vuitton womenswear in 2013, where he has built a long-running vocabulary of A-line minis, varsity outerwear, and screen-saturated set pieces with house ambassadors. His Louis Vuitton contract was extended in 2024 to anchor the house's next chapter.