The biggest job in fashion is now up for grabs – and a British designer is in the running

Age: 55

Current job: Image director at Celine

Design style: Glam, rock, skinny-fitting 

Celebrity fans: Lady Gaga, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex

The favourite, if rumours are anything to go by, is the Parisian designer currently at the helm of Celine. “I have heard Hedi is almost a shoo-in,” confirms one industry source. 

Lagerfeld personally loved Slimane’s work – he famously lost six and a half stone in a year as “I suddenly wanted to wear clothes designed by Hedi Slimane”, he told The Telegraph in 2004. 

Slimane is famous for shaking up any house he goes to, often ruffling feathers. He removed the ‘Yves’ from the Saint Laurent brand name when he became creative director in 2012 and dropped the French accent from Céline when he landed there in 2016. Might his first move at Chanel be to tamper with the iconic double-C logo?

Slimane prefers to operate from his home base in Los Angeles, rather than a Paris atelier – a fact that cements his reputation as a celebrity red carpet favourite, but may be a red flag for Chanel Bruno Pavlovsky.

Pierpaolo Piccioli