The Phoebe Philo case is in many ways reminiscent of Jil Sander's career.

Their path has been marked by fashion innovations, but more recently also by resignations and comebacks.

She founded her brand in Hamburg in 1968 and sold it to Milan in 2000.

She returned twice in the next twelve years.

In between there were longer breaks.

The Chanel of her generation

Jennifer Wiebking

Editor in the "Life" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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No, Jil Sander is not coming back now, not a third time. On Monday, however, a sentence was heard that could have come from her: "I'm looking forward to getting in touch with people again." Phoebe Philo spoke, the Jil Sander at the turn of the millennium. The jubilation was correspondingly great among women in their mid-30s and up who think fashion is great. This comeback is not a premiere either: at the beginning of the millennium, Phoebe Philo, then chief designer at Chloé, anchored the it-bag in the fashion system with the Paddington bag. The New York Times called her the Coco Chanel of her generation for her cultivated look, high-necked trousers with a silk blouse.

The British woman stayed for five years.

In 2006 she left Chloé, had children, and had nothing to do with fashion.

She returned in 2009, now as chief designer at Céline, and shaped the following ten years stylistically like no other.

It provided nothing more and nothing less than excellent garments for life at a time when fashion hung somewhere between the Balmain-style nightclub and Balenciaga-style space.

They were consistently women-friendly designs.

Millennials bought the trio bag from their first salary.

Women who were a little older and had more money built a cloakroom with the pieces.

Joan Didion posed in one of Philo's campaigns when she was 80.

Ten percent for LVMH

In 2017, however, the British woman left, moved from Paris to live with her family in London and disappeared as a rare representative of her guild that has nothing to do with social media. It didn't hurt her. How big it still is is shown by the fact that LVMH has already entered the brand, which will run under its name from January onwards. However, she did not leave more than ten percent to LVMH, one of the two large luxury companies in the world. The rest is Phoebe Philo.