PARIS — When Pierpaolo Piccioli arrived at Balenciaga as its new creative director in June, his predecessor Demna was still working in the brand’s Avenue George V salons preparing a final haute couture show.
“For a month we shared the space, the people, everything. It was a first. I’m proud of that.” Piccioli recalls. His resulting women’s ready-to-wear debut in October, put together in just six weeks, paid homage both to Cristóbal Balenciaga’s archive as well as Demna’s more futuristic, street-style informed contributions to the brand. “It was important to have a sort of ‘passing the torch’ and not to deny what has been done before,” Piccioli said.
Three months later, that spirit of continuity lives on in the brand’s latest collection — at least on paper. Piccioli’s men’s and women’s pre-fall collection, unveiled Thursday, blends archival couture with jeans and hoodies, athletic wear, sneakers and reinterpreted City and Rodeo handbags — checking all the boxes in terms of what’s expected from a commercial lookbook at Balenciaga. And yet Piccioli’s own touch has become unmistakable throughout: with softer, less radical shapes and a gentler attitude declaring a new chapter for the brand.
“It’s a new way of seeing the same thing. You keep the medium while changing the message,” he said. “It’s less cynical, more human, lighter.”
The comments herald a clear shift for Balenciaga, which is seeking to build on its existing business while gradually distancing itself from the ironic, dark sensibility that had powered sales for more than a decade under Demna.
Piccioli’s pre-fall collection seeks to bridge sports and sartorialism. Classic ivory and navy peacoats get a fashion update from rounded shoulders or oversized buttons rather than distressed finishes or dramatically oversized proportions. A barn jacket subtly calls back to mid-century couture with its geometric bell shape. Death-metal merch motifs persist on hoodies and tees, but are styled with a shirt and black tie (a Piccioli signature). Track suits are evoked not in an ironic, “naughty aughties” way but as a pure design reference — a zippered jacket with contrast piping is paired with a billowing pleated skirt. Tailoring is relaxed, not oversized — including a jacket based on Cristóbal’s own blazers, the only known menswear piece by the designer.
Piccioli is a committed lover of classic fashion photography, usually preferring to rely on the dream projected by iconic images rather than the actual archival designs. That method comes across clearly in the lookbook shot by Robin Galiegue and styled by Joe McKenna, which manages to suggest a couture lineage even for stretch workout gear with its clear visual nods to titans of mid-century fashion photography like Rawlings, Bourdin, Avedon and Penn.
The flat affect of the brand’s Demna-era muses is substituted for a new cast of warmer faces, many of them at home in gender-fluid styling that feels less edgy than romantic. We see recurring Piccioli models like Achol Kuir and Agel Akol; musicians Juyeon, Laufey and Eliot Sumner; actor Benjamin Voisin. One of them even flashes a broad smile — defying the fashion cliché (immortalised in “Triangle of Sadness”) that models should only look happy at mass-market brands.
“I think the cynical and the dark world is no longer young. It’s for pretending to be younger. There’s nothing worse than trying to be cool and not just being yourself,” Piccioli said.
Provocation takes on a different meaning as the Parisian house known for its severe couture volumes announces its new “TechWear” line with a long-sleeved workout jumpsuit, cut out on both sides like a monokini. The look is styled with crystal-embellished stilettos from a new collaboration with Manolo Blahnik, taking the season’s themes of “street formal” and “sports sartorial” to an extreme.
The TechWear pieces — some of which feature nun-like hoods recalling Cristóbal’s religious motifs — are real performance garments, Piccioli says. Others blend references to sport and couture: a boxing robe crossed with a shawl-collared opera coat, Balenciaga’s iconic riding hats reimagined as flat-brimmed basketball lids. There are also basketball jerseys and varsity jackets as the brand gets ready to announce a new collaboration with the NBA.
In addition to feeding Balenciaga’s merchandising needs, Piccioli says the insistence on sports throughout the collection is meant to function on several levels. First, there’s a documentary intention: a desire to speak about the way young people are constantly mixing-and-matching formal, street and athletic wear throughout the day. (That non-prescriptive styling feels like an echo of Celine — both Hedi Slimane’s Spring/Summer 2021 homage to Gen Z or more recent efforts to expand its definition of individual style under Michael Rider. The key difference for Piccioli, however, is that where many designers are talking about changing modes of dress through curation of existing wardrobe staples, he and his team are relying on fresh design.)
Then there’s a strategic push to place the body at the centre of Balenciaga’s message: Even Cristóbal’s most sculptural couture pieces were always cut around the body, suspended in ways that created unexpected volume from within, Piccioli says. Concealment was often the result, but not the goal. Thus the introduction of body-hugging athletic styles amidst the sculptural couture references. “I want to get back to the culture of couture as care, as having a conversation with the body,” he said. “Young people in particular think a lot about taking care of the body.”
Piccioli is also drawn to the idea of athletic achievement as a great equaliser, erasing social boundaries. ”Sports is a way to express values like integrity and equality. When you go out on the field or the court, you can break the rules of social statement, of identity, of culture. You only have the way you play, with your own individuality. You don’t bring a heritage or anything else with you.”
That last point is indicative — both of the force of Piccioli’s vision and why it represents such a break with what came before. At Valentino, too, Piccioli used fashion as a way to transcend social context. Dignifying bodies through couture was positioned as a universal, humanist undertaking.
Balenciaga, on the other hand, has fuelled its momentum by tackling fashion’s social context head on: the brand powered fast-growing, tribal demand with its willingness to take uncomfortable stances on taste, class, consumption and ugliness, positioning its wearers as uniquely self-aware.
But as that approach has delivered diminishing returns, the brand is at a crossroads: Should Balenciaga attempt to remain a button-pushing arbiter of cool, or set off to conquer a new (and perhaps less fickle) tribe?
Owner Kering has said Balenciaga’s new designer will need to reaffirm the brand’s couture heritage while continuing to build on its existing business. Navigating that dual mandate while simultaneously finding one’s own voice in the brand is a puzzle.
Time will tell whether Piccioli’s solution — sticking to the structure of existing collections while overhauling its values and message — resonates in the market. While first adopters and fashion insiders may continue to expect more radical messaging, there’s likely a long tail of customers who are simply buying the product, and may just as soon splurge for chunky luxury sneakers without the dystopian overtones.
“My world is for sure lighter, more human, more about persons and less about ‘characters,’” Piccioli said. “It’s about building a language, building a path. It’s creating a community of people who share values through clothes.”