Topshop senior creatives on way out as Hagglund is named new creative chief

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Aug 17, 2017

It’s all change at Topshop and Topman as the Arcadia-owned mass-market influencer chains move from individual creative direction heads and bring in a new uber-creative director to guide both brands.

As of September 4, David Hagglund will oversee the two brands. Hagglund has run his own creative agency from Stockholm and his clients have included H&M, Esprit and Hugo Boss. Nobody has said yet whether he will continue to work with such brands, but we assume not with H&M and Esprit in particular both being Topshop competitors.

Earlier in his career, he had also been art director at Vogue Paris and his appointment reflects a trend for non-traditional appointments in senior creative roles at brands.

And what of current Topshop creative director Kate Phelan and Topman’s Gordon Richardson? They don’t appear to have made a quick exit carrying their cardboard boxes but are reported to be leaving Arcadia later this year.

In fact Phelan, who herself once worked full time at Vogue (in this case the British edition) was earlier announced by new editor-in-chief Edward Enninful to be staying in her senior contributing fashion editor role there, despite a number of long-time senior Vogue names exiting the magazine.

We don’t know whether this change in Topshop leadership was prompted by Phelan’s own decision to focus more on Vogue or not. Phelan has been with Topshop since 2011 and Richardson has been in charge of creative at Topman since the turn of the century.

Arcadia chief Sir Philip Green hailed the change as the start of a new era for the two brands as they expand globally.

The surprise appointment follows further change at the top of the Topshop/Topman organisation after ex-Burberry merchandising chief was named its CEO. He joins on the same day as Hagglund.