Runway
Balenciaga: Pierpaolo Piccioli's Couture Debut
The designer's first collection for the house arrived on the couture calendar's third day.
Pierpaolo Piccioli's move to Balenciaga was one of the more closely watched appointments in recent fashion history, and his first Haute Couture collection for the house, shown on 8 July, carried the weight of that anticipation.
Following a designer as tightly associated with sculptural minimalism and radical silhouette as his predecessor was never going to be simple, and Piccioli's debut was widely read as an attempt to bridge his own instinct for colour and craftsmanship with Balenciaga's more austere codes. Coming on the same day as Duran Lantink's Jean Paul Gaultier debut, it made for one of the couture week's most closely compared afternoons.
About the author
Anaelle Lise
Fashion editor and writer covering design, image-making and the creative networks connecting Southeast Asia.
