Salomon Names Heikki Salonen Its First Creative Director in 30 Years

Salomon has appointed Finnish designer Heikki Salonen as its first-ever creative director, marking a new chapter that formally pulls product and brand storytelling under one lead voice across apparel and footwear. The move comes as Salomon expands beyond its outdoor base, helped by fashion collaborations and rising interest in its shoes for everyday city use.

A New Chapter for Salomon

Salonen’s appointment formalizes a role that did not previously exist at the French outdoor specialist, signaling a more unified creative strategy as the brand balances performance roots with lifestyle momentum. With a career spanning around 30 years, he joins from MM6 Maison Margiela, where he led the label’s design direction for roughly 12 years and helped steer its collaboration with Salomon that began in 2022.

The hire comes as Amer Sports continues to push Salomon beyond core mountain hardware and into a broader sportstyle space, using design and storytelling to connect outdoor credibility with fashion-led consumers. Leadership shifts around the brand, including the planned departure of global chief brand officer Scott Mellin in April 2026, frame this as part of a wider reset of how Salomon presents itself globally.

Design Vision and Background

At Salomon, Salonen will oversee both product design and brand creative direction, a dual remit intended to establish one clear tone of voice across categories, from footwear to apparel. His track record spans Diesel’s Diesel Black Gold line and MM6, where he worked at the intersection of deconstructed fashion, streetwear, and performance inspired pieces.

Long time collaborator Laura Herbst, who has held roles at MM6 and Céline, joins as studio director and partner in the new design setup. The duo is tasked with cultivating a culture of calculated risk taking inside Salomon, echoing the collaborative projects that helped move the brand from trail only circles into runway and streetwear conversations.

Brand Evolution and Timing

Salomon’s own positioning language describes this phase as a shift from a traditional sports brand to a ‘mountain sports lifestyle’ player, where performance and style sit on equal footing. That direction aligns with broader market trends where sportstyle and athleisure blur dress codes, particularly in Europe and key global cities, and where outdoor brands are increasingly competing for lifestyle spend as much as technical gear budgets.

The appointment also builds on the momentum from the MM6 x Salomon partnership, which helped recast technical models like the XT-4 and XT-6 as fashion objects without abandoning their performance identity. By bringing the creative lead from that collaboration in-house, Salomon is effectively betting that the same thinking can scale across inline collections rather than stay confined to capsules.

What it Could Mean for Product

While no specific new footwear or apparel lines are detailed in the announcement, Salonen has framed the opportunity as treating footwear, apparel, and functional gear with equal priority to create future classics rather than relying on archive reissues. That suggests more integrated ranges where a trail shoe, insulated jacket, and bag are conceived as part of a single visual and cultural story, not separate performance silos.

For athletes, outdoor consumers, and fashion-focused buyers, the short term impact will likely show up first in how collections look and communicate rather than in radical changes to core performance platforms. Over time, the test will be whether this centralized creative structure can keep Salomon credible on the mountain while maintaining relevance in fashion and streetwear, where competition and consumer expectations remain high.