Pierpaolo Piccioli’s couture debut reimagines Balenciaga in his own colourful image | Balenciaga
The house of Balenciaga takes haute couture very seriously indeed. Cristóbal Balenciaga was so dismayed by the rise of mass-produced clothing that he abruptly closed his brand in 1968 and retired to his native Spain, declaring that “luxury fashion was mortally wounded.”
Therefore, Pierpaolo Piccioli, who is now the director of the fashion house, approached the brief of the first Balenciaga couture collection meticulously, even though he has 25 years of experience at Valentino. At the premiere, the haute couture war room where she worked on the show for nine months was filled with paintings ranging from a 1961 Balenciaga dress to Spanish golden age art (Zurbarán’s stylish saints, Velázquez’s doll-like dolls) to a monumental megalith with holes by Hepworth.
Balenciaga’s house style is body-flattering clothing. Its organic cocoon folds and bell shapes probably share more DNA with a Hepworth sculpture than tights and tank tops, with room underneath for air to move around the body. Next door to Zurbarán, there’s a distinct air of mystery and wonder about how the fabric is made in a way that allows it to hang in space rather than being cut alone and clinging.
According to Piccioli, Balenciaga was “a philosopher about how you feel in a dress.” Luckily, a show that lasted nine months under the scorching Paris sun was planned during a heatwave that made breezy clothes that didn’t touch the body look extremely appealing. The bustier dress’s embroidered silk gazar protruded from the torso, and the fabric bounced around the model as she walked. (A motorcycle helmet-shaped headdress, densely made of ostrich feathers, looked perhaps less attractive.)
Piccioli inherited Balenciaga’s couture legacy respectfully but on his own terms. A thoroughly modern designer, Cristóbal’s double-breasted tailored suit of jeans and sunglasses, a snake tattoo visible from the cuff of his traditional lab coat and a pack of cigarettes visible in his pocket.
A vertical stack of three fuchsia puffballs, a bolero jacket over the bodice at the top of the skirt, moved down the catwalk like a giant fluorescent chess piece; the perfect avatar for flamboyant and whimsical couture, where anything goes as long as it’s gorgeous. “Haute couture is a world without a map,” Piccioli said. “Your imagination has no limits.” The gorgeous color sensibility he brought to Valentino was paired with strong silhouettes saturated in ultraviolet, anise or lavender.
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Some of the most gorgeous looks in this collection were feathered, embroidered or big ball gown trains because that’s what so many women are wearing these days and “I didn’t want it to be too far from reality.” This modernizing spirit updated historic custom construction methods using modern technology. Customers’ bodies will be scanned using 3D technology and a blueprint of the garment will be digitally adjusted accordingly. But while Piccioli was excited about the technological advances at the preview, he wanted them to be invisible on the runway. “You don’t want to know too much about the technique, it needs to be disguised so all you see is the magic of a woman in a dress.”
Silvana Armani, the niece of the late Giorgio, took the driver’s seat more decisively with her second Armani Privé haute couture show. While his uncle’s succession plan puts him in charge of womenswear, his longtime partner and menswear design leader Leo Dell’Orco now oversees menswear. Consistency and elegant restraint are the core values of the Armani empire, and the pace of change under new designers has been smooth, but there were also personal touches on the catwalk. The little hats that Armani loved to accessorise couture catwalks were banned – Silvana admits that she has never been fond of hats since the death of her uncle – and her own personal style, as a woman who wore trousers in the evening as well as during the day, was reflected in a collection where trousers matched the outnumbering evening dresses.
