Dries Van Noten appoints Axel Keller as president

Dries Van Noten has reshuffled its senior management following the departure of CEO Matteo de Rosa. As FashionNetwork.com reported in October, de Rosa is joining LVMH to take charge of the luxury group’s Métiers d’Art division. He will be replaced, as a spokesperson for the Belgian luxury label told FashionNetwork.com, by Axel Keller, a manager with a 30-year-plus experience in the luxury sector.

In September, Keller stepped down from his role as CEO of Jil Sander, replaced by Ubaldo Minelli, CEO of Italian fashion group OTB, which had acquired the German label. Keller joined Jil Sander in February 2018, as commercial director, and was promoted CEO eight months later. Before then, he had forged a career in fashion sales, having been in charge of sales at Maison Martin Margiela for 13 years, from 1989 to 2002, and then working for 15 years as commercial director of Balenciaga, until 2017.

In parallel, Dries Van Noten has appointed as vice-president Sabine Fandino Fineau, until now the managing director of the Belgian label, where she has been working for 25 years.

Dries Van Noten was founded in Antwerp in 1986 by the eponymous designer, who is still the creative director and has a minority stake in the company, which was bought by Spanish group Puig in 2018. During the pandemic, Dries Van Noten has restructured its business, streamlining the collections, which in the last two years have been presented digitally via videos, and overhauling its distribution organisation by strengthening e-tail and revamping its store concept, as shown by the shop opened in Los Angeles last year, which combines fashion, art and music.

Dries Van Noten appoints Axel Keller as president

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