PARIS — “I used to be a hiker in the fashion world, now I’m a fashion guy in the hiking world.”
That’s how Heikki Salonen described his arrival at Salomon, which on Wednesday revealed his appointment as its first its first creative director, a newly created role.
WWD was first to report in December that he was a top contender for a creative leadership role at the French outdoor specialist after a 12-year tenure as creative head at MM6 Maison Margiela. The two brands have an ongoing collaboration that began for the fall 2022 collection and has spanned shoes as well as clothing and accessories.
At Salomon, the Finnish designer will be overseeing a broad remit that spans both product design and brand creative direction, across all product ranges within soft goods.
The French company’s chief executive officer Guillaume Meyzenq called Salonen’s appointment “a unification of brand positioning, consumer experience and product innovation,” in a statement shared with WWD first. “We are delighted to welcome Heikki to the Salomon executive board and to see where his vision takes Salomon’s next chapter.”
But don’t expect radical changes or disruption from the Finnish designer.
“What’s nice about [Salomon] is that there’s nothing broken, there’s an amazing past and there’s great products already there,” the designer told WWD in an exclusive interview at the brand’s expansive Paris offices and showroom. “I’m just jumping in on a very exciting moment when everything is possible.”
Such a vast undertaking is not something he is about to approach solo. A key hire is newly installed studio director Laura Herbst, who worked alongside the Finnish designer for over a decade and whose track record includes MM6, Céline and Maison Margiela.
For Salonen, the French brand has achieved a desirable balance between performance and being subculturally relevant in its footwear, he said. It’s an avenue worth pursuing in his opinion.
“Salomon has always been nicely not just [about] product but also [about] creating cultures around things,” he said. “I think that’s what we need to keep on doing because if there is no culture around products, they are completely irrelevant.”
That’s not to say he’s aiming for status quo, as there is plenty he intends to change.
High on his list is boundaries between product lines.
“I would love to have these missions [where] we also break the idea of a shoe designer and an apparel designer [so] that everybody can pitch in and be there,” he said. “Because we all love the sport and love the products.…We all have opinions and the more we can cross pollinate [them], the better Salomon becomes because the legacy of the house is also to really marry these things together.”
Seasonal divisions could also take a hike under Salonen’s tenure.
While hard goods are not in his purview, “we want to make sure that we go out there as one brand and break this idea of winter sports, summer sports,” he said. “We have one space and it’s a mountain outdoor athletic place and I think that’s our place to go.”
That’s also where building “the world’s premier mountain sports lifestyle brand,” as the company described itself, begins.
“Whatever we do, we start from there — and if someone wants to use our products elsewhere, then we celebrate that,” he added.
Asked if a rebranding could be on the cards for Salomon, Salonen said he remained “a very nerdy product guy” at heart.
“I’m always looking into whether the branding brings value to the product,” he continued. “On the shoes and footwear side, we are playing with many logos and rightly so — it’s great to expose the different eras — and authenticity [in] what you do remains key.”
On the one hand he is a proponent of “stirring the pot” creatively, but on the other, he strongly believes in continuity.
Take the question of his first offering for the brand.
“That’s the beauty of it: I don’t think there will be such a thing as a first collection,” he said. With the brand’s wealth of “great products,” he believes in a smooth transition that coincides with his distaste for drastic changes between collections, having long preferred the idea of a continuous wardrobe and a mix-match approach beyond labels.
“I think style comes from there and excitement comes from when you start playing around, thinking about who you are and how you react in different situations,” he said.
Asked how collaborations might play into that direction, Salonen said these would definitely continue “but also a big part is to create our apparel and make it strong, relevant not just to hardcore athletes but also democratized to make sure people of all ages and all genders can enjoy these products.”
In addition to MM6, the brand has developed partnerships with Parisian retailer The Broken Arm and with designers such as Sandy Liang.
Other areas the newly minted creative director is eyeing is “innovating in place where the industry has been a little bit stagnant,” he said. “You will see a new product coming from Salomon and maybe something that was not expected from us.”
Salonen’s arrival dovetails with the departure of Scott Mellin, Salomon’s global chief brand officer of three years who is exiting on April 1. Meanwhile, Nick Parkinson, who joined the Amer Sports-owned mountain sports company from Nike in March 2025 as global brand creative director, remains in his role.
With Parkinson’s remit continues to be heading the studio team creating marketing and branding material, including campaigns, he will now report to the marketing division and to Salonen.
In recent years, the Annecy-based company has been stepping up its ambitions, particularly in the sportstyle category.
Having gone through “a period of great transition over the last five years,” it now defines itself as “a modern mountain sport brand” as Meyzenq told WWD sister publication Footwear News in July.
The brand will soon be in the spotlight as a premium partner of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, which are set to take place in Milan and Cortina in February. Projects around the global sporting event were led by Mellin.
