Biography
Louise Trotter is the creative director of Carven, and former creative director of British label Lacoste and Joseph. Under her leadership, Joseph’s own line became more fashion forward, offering its interpretation of recent trends alongside the classic silhouettes that made founder Joseph Ettedgui successful. In July 2018 her departure from Joseph was announced following a nine-year tenure, while in September she joined Lacoste as the brand's first female creative director, in succession of Felipe Oliviera Baptista's eight year tenure.
Now based in Paris full-time, the Sunderland-born designer studied marketing and design at Newcastle Polytechnic. Much of her early career was spent at British high street favourite Whistles, where she eventually became buying and design director. She then relocated stateside to take up the vice-president of womenswear design at Gap in New York. After that she became head of womenswear at Calvin Klein , before taking a design role at Tommy Hilfiger .
She joined British brand Jigsaw as creative director in 2007, with her first collection for the label, which was well received by the fashion press, debuting in autumn of that year. In 2009, she took the helm at Joseph, moving to Paris and succeeding the brand’s founder Joseph Ettedgui, who died in 2010.
In 2014 Trotter debuted a Joseph womenswear catwalk show during London Fashion Week, which lent the multi-brand retailer’s own label more authority. Trotter is also widely credited with an instrumental role in the brand's international expansion, as well as hiring Z Zegna Alumn Franceso Muzi as Joseph's first designer for its menswear collection.
Today, Joseph’s own brand is the beating heart of the business, accounting for 87 percent of the company’s global sales in 2015. While some retailers produce private labels as a way to cover the cost of selling designer brands at low margins, Joseph’s private label has been a vehicle for international expansion. Creatively directing Lacoste, Trotter took inspiration from the likes of René Lacoste and Suzanne Lenglen in her debut Autumn 2019 Paris Fashion Week collection, while the brand hit the $2 billion benchmark in annual revenue for 2018.
In February 2023, Carven appointed Trotter as creative director. The brand, which has been owned by the Chinese group Icicle since 2018, will return to the Paris Fashion Week schedule with Trotter’s debut show in September. Carven hasn’t shown since March 2018, just before it underwent a court-supervised sale to avoid liquidation.
Trotter splits her time between London and Paris.