Martina Tiefenthaler

Martina Tiefenthaler is the Artistic Director of the Master's specialization in Fashion Art Direction at the Institut Français de la Mode (IFM).

She is an Austrian-born fashion designer and creative director with a multidisciplinary background. After a brief foray into architecture, she trained as a communication designer before studying fashion design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna under Véronique Branquinho and Bernhard Willhelm.

Martina began her career at Maison Martin Margiela, in the women’s show collection team, before joining the womenswear studio at Louis Vuitton under Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. She went on to co-found Vetements, then joined Balenciaga alongside Demna, where she became Chief Creative Officer. In this role she oversaw the image department and all design studios, helping to shape the brand’s success over the past decade. Her experience spans the full spectrum of fashion, from art direction to the design of womenswear, menswear, accessories, and couture, as well as show concepts, presentations, advertising campaigns, store design, and overall creative brand strategy.

Today, she works as a creative consultant for fashion brands, as a coach for individuals across the creative industries, and as the founder of V4K, an ongoing creative guide and resource for contemporary plant-based eating, driven by an ethos of questioning the present and proposing alternative solutions, with community, collaboration, and creativity at the heart of her practice.