The fashion industry is united in acknowledging Cristóbal Balenciaga as a designer like no other. His technical prowess resulted in designs that became ever more flawless as time went on. Writing in 1967, the year the Spanish couturier retired, UPI reporter Aline Mosby put it this way: “The clothes of Balenciaga…looked like an ironing board headed into the wind. It was that smooth look, every seam a masterpiece, the flat surfaces with hardly a dent to show even the bosom, the faultless construction, the hunched-over curve, that made Balenciaga—without question—the world’s greatest living creator of women’s clothing.”
Pierpaolo Piccioli will be the fifth designer to pick up the great man’s mantle, following Michel Goma, Nicolas Ghesquière, Alexander Wang, and Demna. The pairings below, which place the Italian designer’s work next to that of Balenciaga, suggest he is well suited for the job. His joy in colour is grounded in designs that have rigour.
In a conversation earlier today, Piccioli recalled that the very first image he posted on Instagram was Balenciaga’s famous wedding dress of 1967, a bias-cut oval of gazar and coal-scuttle hat that is a study in simple elegance and the manifestation of the couturier’s belief that “elegance is elimination.” Piccioli saw this marvel, which he describes as a “masterpiece of the history of fashion,” on display in the Costume Institute’s “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” exhibition at The Met. Balenciaga, he said, is “probably one of the first minimalists, and that dress, to me, is a manifesto of what Brancusi was saying: Simplicity is complexity resolved, which is also my manifesto when I work. So I resaw this post, and even if I’m not a fan of predestination, I felt there was something. Sometimes we have to go where, unaware, we are going already.” It certainly feels like Piccioli is embarking on a golden off-to-meet-the-Wizard moment.
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More than minimal: Cristóbal Balenciaga’s silk gazar wedding ensemble
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Moncler x Pierpaolo Piccioli, fall 2018 ready-to-wear
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Valentino, fall 2018 couture
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From Cristóbal Balenciaga: “Evening white swept with red.” White satin dress and red velvet stole
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Goya-inspired dresses by Cristóbal Balenciaga
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Valentino, spring 2022 couture
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Valentino, fall 2023 couture
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A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Susan Murray wears Cristóbal Balenciaga’s black crepe dinner dress with black gazar rose headdress
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Diana Vreeland with Cristóbal Balenciaga’s famous one-seam coat
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Valentino, fall 2021 ready-to-wear
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Valentino, spring 2024 couture
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B is for bolero and balloon and Balenciaga
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Nineteenth-century-inspired looks by Cristóbal Balenciaga
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Moncler x Pierpaolo Piccioli, fall 2019 ready-to-wear
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Valentino, spring 2023 couture
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Cristóbal Balenciaga stripes it rich, 1955
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Belle feather: Cristóbal Balenciaga’s marabou-trimmed sheath, 1957
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Valentino, fall 2021 ready-to-wear
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Balenciaga by Demna, fall 2021 couture
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