Seán McGirr leaves Alexander McQueen and Veronica Leoni leaves Calvin Klein: what is confirmed

Seán McGirr is leaving Alexander McQueen, and Veronica Leoni is leaving Calvin Klein Collection. Both exits were confirmed on Thursday, October 15, 2026, within hours of each other, and neither house has named who comes next. This is what the companies actually said, what is only reported, and what the numbers around each brand show.

What Kering and McQueen said

Kering published the McQueen announcement on October 15, 2026. It says McGirr "will be leaving his role as Creative Director of the House" and that since joining in 2023 he "has shaped a new chapter in the House's creative story." It closes with one line on what happens next: "The House will soon announce its new creative leadership."

Kering chief executive Luca de Meo thanked McGirr and then looked forward, saying the group's ambition is "to establish a bold new direction for the House." Gianfranco D'Attis, president and CEO of Alexander McQueen, said McGirr had "approached the House with great respect for its history while expressing his own vision." McGirr himself said he looked forward to "my next chapter."

No reason for the exit appears in the release, and nobody on the record has offered one. McGirr joined in 2023 as the successor to Sarah Burton, per FashionUnited. His final collection was shown in September 2026, according to Fashionista, which says that show turned out to be his last for the house.

What Calvin Klein said

Calvin Klein's statement came from David Savman, the brand's global brand president, as quoted by Fashionista: "I want to thank Veronica for her creative vision, commitment and partnership over the past two years." Leoni was named creative director of Calvin Klein Collection, the brand's luxury tier, in May 2024, and was the first woman to hold the role. Her debut was at New York Fashion Week for fall 2025, which brought the house back to the runway, and her fourth and final collection was the spring 2027 season in September 2026.

Reports differ on timing. Fashionista says she is stepping down "effective immediately." FashionUnited says Calvin Klein confirmed she will leave when her current contract ends. We could not open Calvin Klein's own release, so treat the effective date as unresolved. Both outlets agree on the main point: no successor is named, and FashionUnited reports that Calvin Klein said a new creative leadership structure for Collection would be revealed "in due course."

The numbers around each brand

Kering does not report McQueen's sales separately. What the group's July 28, 2026 half-year release does say is that McQueen is working on "repositioning the brand as a British authority in tailoring and occasion wear" and "rightsizing its distribution network," under D'Attis, who was appointed chief executive on June 1, 2026. That means McGirr leaves a house already in the middle of a business reset led by someone else. Kering's whole Fashion and Leather Goods segment reported first-half 2026 revenue of 5,800 million euros, down 1% on a comparable basis.

Calvin Klein is different, because PVH reports it as a brand. In the quarter ended August 2, 2026, Calvin Klein revenue was $913.3 million versus $980.0 million a year earlier, a 7% drop. PVH's filing says roughly 4 points of that came from the timing of wholesale shipments in the Americas, moving to the second half. For the 2025 fiscal year the brand made $3,964.0 million, up from $3,856.7 million. The Collection tier that Leoni ran is a small part of that, and the filings do not break it out.

Why it keeps happening

These are the second and third big creative exits in under a week. Kering announced on October 9 that Anthony Vaccarello was leaving Saint Laurent after about ten years, which we covered in Anthony Vaccarello leaves Saint Laurent: what Kering confirmed. FashionUnited points back to 2025, when more than 20 leading brands changed creative hands. Fashionista's running list now also includes Ib Kamara at Off-White and Julien Dossena at Rabanne.

Every move is logged, dated, in our creative director changes tracker, which will be updated when either house names a successor.

Vaccarello's exit was announced on October 9, and FashionUnited says that as of Thursday no appointment had been confirmed at Saint Laurent either. That leaves three major houses with a vacant creative seat and no public timetable. For the reader the practical consequence is small, because nothing already in stores changes. For the industry it is large: each opening resets a search among a limited number of candidates, and Fashionista counts several of the people now available as well-known names.

What we do not know

We do not know who succeeds either designer, why the exits happened now, or whether Calvin Klein Collection continues as a runway line. Search the coverage and you will find plenty of names and theories. Until a company says one, treat it as a rumor. We also could not open Calvin Klein's own release, so every Calvin Klein quote here comes from Fashionista's account of the statement, and the McQueen text comes straight from Kering's page.

Our take

Read the McQueen exit as part of a reset that began when the new chief executive arrived, not as a verdict on one collection. Read the Calvin Klein exit as a luxury experiment that lasted four seasons inside a brand with nearly $4 billion in annual revenue, where the filings do not break out the Collection tier at all. What we would watch: who is named at McQueen and whether tailoring, which Kering says is the new focus, leads the pitch, and whether Calvin Klein keeps Collection on the New York calendar. What we would skip: shortlists with no source.