Dive Brief:

• Chanel’s longtime president and chief operating officer, John Galantic, is departing the luxury French brand in June, according to a report from WWD.
• During Galantic’s 17-year tenure with Chanel, he spearheaded the expansion of the brand’s digital capabilities as well as helped support the company’s environmental and social justice efforts.
• “Galantic has built the brand and the business of Chanel Inc. into a true powerhouse,” a spokesperson told the publication. Galantic was applauded for his work growing the fashion house’s business and profitability.

Dive Insight:

Before coming to Chanel, Galantic served as president and COO of Coty Beauty U.S., and had roles at SmithKline Beecham and Procter & Gamble Co. A spokesperson for Chanel did not respond to Fashion Dive’s request for comment. 

Galantic is leaving Chanel during a period of growth. The company’s revenue soared to $15.6 billion in 2021, the latest year for which financial data is available. That’s up 49.6% from 2020 and 22.9% from 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the brand’s business. 

Analysts have attributed the brand’s recent sales increase to Chanel’s price hikes over the past couple of years. By early 2022, the fashion house had raised the price for its Classic Flap bag to $8,200 — $3,000 more than what it cost in 2019. Similar increases were seen for the brand’s other popular bags. 

Although many luxury fashion houses have been raising prices over the last few years, experts have noted that Chanel’s hikes have appeared larger and more frequent. 

Chanel has also been touting its sustainability initiatives, which a spokesperson told WWD  Galantic had been helping to support. In the brand’s latest financial report, which came out in 2022, it noted that it had reduced its Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions by 5% and Scope 2 emissions, meaning those associated with the purchase of utilities, by 58% since 2020. 

However, the company noted recent increases in its Scope 3 emissions — those for which a company is indirectly responsible for, such as the greenhouse gasses produced when growing cotton for garments. These emissions make up the majority of the fashion industry’s carbon footprint and are notoriously difficult to track. 

Sustainability and social issues will remain important for Chanel to execute on, Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, said in an email. Pedraza credited Galantic with modernizing the organization while staying true to Chanel’s DNA. 

The brand has not yet publicly named Galantic’s successor. Although Pedraza said that Galantic’s replacement will need an understanding of ultra wealthy clients, he argued that “the brand is always bigger than the individual.”

“That’s especially true in luxury,” Pedraza said. “There is usually a deep bench of executives in the top tier luxury brands.