Is Fashion Marketing Truly the Toughest Job?

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. Bruna Scognamiglio joined Balmain in September 2024 as CMO under chief executive Matteo Sgarbossa. A little over a year later, the brand’s long-time creative director Olivier Rousteing passed the torch; in November 2025, Antonin Tron was appointed to the top design job, becoming Balmain’s first new creative director in 14 years. Scognamiglio had a new task at hand: usher in Tron’s era, helping to reach new customers without alienating Rousteing loyalists. “The chief marketing officer is responsible for the long-term value of the brand,” says Scognamiglio, who joined Balmain from Ferragamo. “I’m lucky that I had a year to study the brand, understand the client and know what she wants. In working with Antonin, it’s about being the brand guardian. How do we express ourselves? Who is our woman now? What does she gain from Antonin; what is she losing from Olivier?” Scognamiglio is one of many luxury marketing execs figuring out how to deftly communicate a creative transition, maximizing both customer recruitment and retention while underscoring how a new designer era both advances the brand without erasing its history. For many, much rides on the success of brands’ new eras. A strong creative vision and compelling product alone isn’t enough. It’s the responsibility of the marketer to cut through the noise, sell the story, convince the customer (especially as trust in luxury erodes) and win back dollars that are increasingly being spent in other places, like wellness and travel. “Luxury brands have a consumer problem that has not gone away,” says Scott Kerr, founder and managing partner at luxury consultancy Silvertone. “They’re disillusioned by high prices without an increased value proposition — a lack of transparency, a lack of personalization. It’s not resonating with customers emotionally. Creative directors are just one part of the story [in fixing that] — and that’s where marketing leaders come into play.” Brands take different approaches to marketing team structures and titles, signaling the complexity of a role that sits across creative and strategy and must toe the line between chief executive demands and creative director visions. Marketing heads are expected to work across brand, image, communications, social media, performance marketing, clienteling, and consumer experiences. Brands might appoint a CMO, or they might hire chief brand officers, chief digital officers, image directors or communication leads whose functions are ultimately that of the marketer: communicate the brand’s story; build a lasting community. “Product doesn’t sell itself,” says Karen Harvey, founder and CEO of Karen Harvey Consulting, a luxury advisory firm that helps place talent. “People need to feel like they want to wear that badge [of a brand], and think, ‘That’s actually me.’ That’s where the marketer comes in.” Experts say that as luxury moves away from the idea of the ‘star designer’ — a singular visionary who carries the brand’s fate on their back, overseeing everything from store experience to social media strategy — marketers are more important than ever in setting a brand up for long-term success. “The notion of the star designer is over, for now at least,” says Frédéric Godart, a sociologist specializing in fashion and luxury and professor of organizational behavior at French business school Insead. “Instead, it’s about putting the brands back at the center of operations, establishing trust and craft as well.” This speaks to the core challenge facing marketers today. While most brands split marketing teams by region and category to make their messaging as specialized as possible, the resounding directive is to convince customers that the product is worth the price while communicating that a new creative era is underway. What’s the right way to do this? Which customer should be the core target — rising Gen Zs, or older consumers with more cash? Do irony and irreverence, both high in currency on social media, have a place in luxury messaging? Does AI? And in an attention-starved society, how much of it can you actually command? Luxury marketing’s new playbook In a period of creative transition, experts suggest brands go back to basics. The role of the marketer is to unite the company — from store associates to e-commerce managers and designers — around a clear identity. “Marketing is not a function anymore. I consider myself an orchestral director,” says Scognamiglio. This involves working across departments, and speaking with customers, to make sure everything is coherent with the long-term vision. “The CMO’s job is to get everyone in the organization to reconnect with what the brand is and what it isn’t. Timeless? Sexy? Minimalist? Loud? Go back to a brand book,” says Harvey. These guardrails help brands navigate the tricky task of sending the relevant message to the right audience, “which is why the CMO is so important”. To usher in Tron’s era, Scognamiglio revisited the brand’s origins. She sees a lot of similarities between him and house founder Pierre Balmain, in their dedication to precision and craftsmanship. But the importance of a recognizable identity from one creative director to the next cannot be overlooked. “In a meeting, someone used the word ‘minimalist’. How we expressed ourselves was bold, and now everywhere, we see minimalists. That’s not the brand, and it never will be,” Scognamiglio says. “We need to make sure Antonin’s language is interpreted for the values of our brand. The values will stay the same, but the expression is more modern.” A brand clear identity is more important than ever, says Kerr. “What’s the core value proposition of each brand through each creative director? That has to take center stage in ways it hasn’t in the past, over design and creative vision. Marketing will have to step up its role in really pushing to get the value proposition across.” One example Scognamiglio offers is that under Rousteing, Balmain closely aligned with pop music, with notable “Balmain army” celebs including Beyoncé and Rihanna. Now, the CMO sees an opportunity to align with the world of architecture, which heavily influenced Pierre Balmain’s design codes. These cultural crossovers — showing up in unexpected places and finding the right partners — is only becoming more important as fashion further embeds itself in the worlds of art, entertainment, sport and food. “Because of consumer complexity — young millennials, older millennials, Gen Alphas, Gen Zs — there is this very interesting moment where fashion can be invited to any party, or invite anyone to someone else’s,” says Harvey. “If you want to create value, you have to be cultural agents,” agrees Godart. “Customers expect that luxury brands are not going to just make handbags or dresses, but that they understand the zeitgeist — a brand should be something more than a brand. If brands don’t offer more, they’re going to be lost.” Chanel, for one, demonstrated a refreshed marketing approach under Matthieu Blazy ahead of the brand’s Metiers d’Art show in New York City. It tapped A$AP Rocky — despite not selling menswear — and Margaret Qualley to star in a short film directed by Michel Gondry that tied into the city-slicker, urbanite theme of its collection. “It’s appealing to a customer that maybe didn’t resonate with the brand before, through the clothes, the casting and the styling,” says Divya Mathur, chief merchandising officer and fashion director at online retailer Revolve. Solving luxury’s PR problem Luxury has lost around 50 million customers, Bain reports, and the management consultancy predicts that in 2026, the industry will return to growth by 3-5%. That rebound will be hard-won. Marketers have a harder job than ever to convince customers to return. “Consumers are demanding quality,” says Harvey. “Luxury brands have made the mistake of saying this is our image, people either want this or they don’t.” Today, consumers need more convincing that a product is worth the price, and that a brand is worth buying into. Harvey says this can be done by building trust and establishing communities — a well-worn marketing term that simply means building a loyal customer base on emotional connection, not just transactions. “Brands are realizing that customers don’t want just clothes anymore,” says Mathur. “If you can afford these price points, you want to feel like the lifestyle and aesthetic ties back to who you are. Luxury is no longer just positioning itself as untouchable fantasy.” Kerr says that the most investment should be made into winning over younger generations, replenishing the brand’s relevance with new customers, and trusting that older generations will find the products and brands they like to figure out how to make them their own. But Godart warns brands not to fall into the trap of obsessing only over the rising class of younger customers. “Gen X has money and they’re less disillusioned,” he says. “That generation should be a bigger point of focus.” Pricing structures, quality product, clienteling strategies and consumer experiences all intersect under the eye of the marketer, whose job it is to establish a community identity that customers are not just willing, but eager, to buy into. “When luxury brand prices are high, but the quality doesn’t represent that, it doesn’t feel connected to me. I don’t care anymore; it doesn’t feel special anymore,” says Harvey. “It’s very hard work. But I think brands have to make more covetable products, and they have to be much more thoughtful about who they’re sharing their messages with and in what way.” Scognamiglio says her biggest challenge at Balmain is prioritization. “There are so many channels. What is critical is understanding where you can make the difference. What is unique about Balmain? It’s all about that in the end,” she says. “That’s where you see the difference now in the role of the CMO. Before, they were focused on a story, and the product was reaching the client. It’s not linear anymore. The role of the CMO is seeking an intersection between creativity, culture and business.”