Four months after his debut women’s show for Balenciaga, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s larger agenda for the house recently vacated by Demna is now readable in extended form. Against the backdrop of a posh notional home gym, and out on the street in Paris, here it is: “Combining tech-wear with couture is key to this collection” he said. “Both for women and men.”
All the creative directors who’ve recently leapt into the driving seats of juggernaut luxury fashion brands have the tricky task of deciding at what speed to move ahead without leaving existing customers in the dust. “I don’t believe streetwear is dead,” Piccioli declares. He’s just seeing the canon of the hoodie and the giant trainer a bit differently from Demna, who made Balenciaga the home of them. “I feel Balenciaga is about the actuality of modern life. From the beginning, I’ve said I want to put the human—the body—at the centre of the project, but I’ve done it in a new way here. Because Balenciaga DNA, to me, is about innovation.”
What Piccioli terms “tech-wear” is the taut stretch of bodysuits and leggings, plus a makeover for the humongously recognisable Balenciaga trainer silhouette. They are now so lightweight that they’re possible “to run in, do sport in.” In a world where there’s so much on offer, he believes every piece needs to justify its value. “These are technical clothes, for performance, not just decorative. They’re about allowing the body to move. Not just an abstract idea about fashion.”
Reconsidering the cocooning cuts and volumes of Cristobal Balenciaga’s work comes as second nature to a designer with his own long experience in couture at Valentino. “It’s about keeping the codes, and giving them a different meaning,” he observed. “I’m here because of who came before. I don’t want to deny that.”
Balenciaga history geeks will spot that the men’s camel coat—with what Piccioli calls a “square cut”—is based on the one extant overcoat in the archive that Cristobal tailored for himself. The off-the-shoulder necklines that have been worked into leather jackets and sinuous dresses, through to the pouf at the back of a man’s bomber, are all references, as are the extravagant trailing cape-back gowns (yet, modernised and made in jersey, as easy to throw on as t-shirts, he promised.)
What’s likely to get most talked-about, though, is the 20-year-old revival of the tall riding helmet hat with which Nicolas Ghesquière caused such a sensation in his spring 2006 Balenciaga show. Piccioli said his own version is constructed more as a baseball cap—worn with a “cagoule,” or a sculpted scarf—designed as a conceptual cross-vibe with streetwear.
Like Demna, Piccioli applies his own social observation of how people wear clothes and mix them up today. He knows glamorous occasion dressing inside-out (there are plenty of sequins, mostly hanging out on the Metro). Collabs, too: one with Manolo Blahnik and the other with the NBA. The latter drops today.
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