Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Womenswear FW2017

Demna Gvasalia, Balenciaga’s talented designer, is genuinely experimental and unafraid to realize and run with audacious ideas. In a short time, that approach has garnered him a great deal of attention and a reputation as perhaps the coolest designer on the planet right now.
Again, Gvasalia displayed that sense of bravado, his collection packed with twists, turns and grand gestures made with a deliberate street attitude. The collection was inspired by the house photo archives, where he found pictures with the poses of [Cristóbal] Balenciaga’s house models as they clutch fabric and strike couture attitudes.
Gvasalia delivered a raw take on haute motifs, opening the show with a bold coat-and-dress series. One side of each coat was pulled way over and fastened on the opposite shoulder – and this was not a styling tric but the actual cut – apparently to give the look of a swath of fabric thrown over a model’s shoulder. These shapes looked bold and fresh, with a wearability range from runway only to real-word chic.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear FW2017

Demna Gvasalia, the designer of Balenciaga, got inspired by the corporate style. His fall-collection was all about the 9-to-5, from the mail room straight up to the c-suite.
Gvasalia worked around formalwear and put tailoring on a pedestal, took away the rigidity of the classic corporate suit and breath some warmth and coziness into it. He delivered a slick, thought-provoking collection packed with tailoring — and comfort: Suits were cut loose and baggy — no restrictive tailoring here — while shirts were fully unbuttoned, flashing chest flesh. Coats were even bigger, boxy and long enough to stash an umbrella or two, and had the sharply exaggerated shoulders that Gvasalia is making his signature at the brand. Footwear came in the form of chunky soled sneakers, combat-style or rain boots.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear SS2017

It was Demna Gvasalia’s debut men’s collection for Balenciaga — and the brand’s first men’s show in its 99-year history. Not since Hedi Slimane’s rockers stormed down the runway some 15 years ago has anyone at a major house paraded a silhouette this severe: coats and suits with shoulders as wide as a fridge, immediately followed by the opposite: suffocating, shrunken styles on models with ironing-board physiques, most of them cast on Instagram.

Time will tell if the David Byrne look makes any sense to young generations weaned on droopy jeans and sloppy hoodies. While challenging, these Balenciaga clothes had such conviction behind them — and a peerless execution — that they commanded attention, and are bound to be influential.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Womenswear FW2016

How nervous must Demna Gvasalia have been presenting his first collection for Balenciaga today in Paris’s Canal +’s former studio? We don’t know, but it didn’t particularly show in his on point collection of clothes. As a new creative director you first should work your way through as many archives as possible to understand the essence of the brand, before mixing your own DNA to it. Which he did. Mixing his eye for urban street wear and modern day style(the influence of his Vetements collective) with the classic shapes from Balenciaga‘s archives. And it seemed quite a match, to say the least.

The collection was build on couture attitudes transforming a modern, utilitarian wardrobe, the show notes red. “How to place Balenciaga’s legacy in a new context? And what is sophisticated?” Questions Gvasalia kept in mind while designing. To set the tone, the show began with many padded hip suits, slit skirts and dresses in grey and brown tones, all with the familiair hourglass silhouette. Half way through (look 8) the streetwear touch became more noticeable, with oversize puffers and bad weather outerwear. Afterwards, everything started shrinking again, showing some head-to-toe floral ensembles, how to handle the half-tuck oversized shirt (owned by many fashion editors) and we counted many accessory options, like the giant platform leather boots and exaggerated chained sunglasses. But what we liked most is that something so easy as pulled off the shoulder jackets and pushed-back necklines can give you a whole different, almost sensual, but look in a small, everyday gesture. Who doesn’t want to wear her trenches or shearlings like this too this spring?! We know we do.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Womenswear SS2016

A big relieve or just a big celebration of fashion? Either way Alexander Wang danced his way on and off the runway after he presented his third and final Balenciaga collection. Held in an ivory colored churched, with matching carpet and a long pool dividing the runway, the show was filled too with just one shade of dreamy white. From the slouchy pants to the lace dresses and yes even fanny packs, flower embroidered lace slippers and bras came in off white. A collection that had femininity and romantic written all over it. Silk and lace, ruffles, ribbons and rose paddles shapes all included. Even though, if you looked closer, some outfits weren’t even all that elegant and were actually a perfect match with the show’s rap music. But no matter how sporty, loung-y or casual the piece Wang gave it a tender touch. In real life a bit more shaping and tailoring might be useful to portray the female body in it’s best way (even some of the models couldn’t pull off the shapeless bras and saggy pants). But we got the idea. Natural, serene, at ease yet powerful. A step out of Wang’s comfort zone. But when there’s nothing to loose, why not take a risk?

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

With his fall Balenciaga collection, Alexander Wang made a bold, engaging move — or started to. “I want to approach design [with] something much more subversive and irreverent [in] looking at these classical notions,” he said during a preview to WWD. “I try to respect the heritage and the history, but also add a twist.”
And he did indeed. Out of the gate, mixing meaty fabrics — tweeds, windowpanes, bouclés — in looks grounded in the architectural curvature of the house founder, sometimes with heightened severity. And he piled on glamour jewelry derived from (without copying) the in-house heirloom loot, fastening a sexy wrap skirt with a flower brooch; closing a coat with a dramatic diamanté dagger. Between silhouette and sparkle, there was a lot of lady going on.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Womenswear FW2014

The overall look and silhouette of the Balenciaga-collection was determined by a strong, rounded shoulder; architectural arcs and folds; slim pants, all with a vaguely futuristic feeling heightened by details such as zippers.

Alexander Wang worked his knitwear premise creatively, delivering it with casual panache and a touch of tough.

He opened with impressive wool coats and jackets, big, horizontal scuba-inspired zippers making for aggressive decoration on their backs. Over each of these he put a beaver “apron scarf” with an attached kangaroo pocket knitted from shoe-laces and rubber cording. Some coats came in a polyester jersey that aped cabled textures; others were knitted and fused to outer shells of latex or leather. Dresses were structured shifts, their graphic quotient intensified with bold zippered strips, a detail used on pants as well.

For evening he tweaked the sweater motif, bejeweling the arc with lavish encrustations of pearls. He paired it with pants and a satin knot-front bodice.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Womenswear SS2014

It was Alexander Wangs second collection for Balenciaga. This time he showed sculptural suits in woven leather buy cheap cialis twine, one blue, one pink, which circular constructions were a nod to the house founder but their mood, fresh and sporty, referred to Wang. There was mores athletica: running shorts in the same leather, worn matched to either a tank or cropped T-shirt. There were hints of Fifties pool party and Sixties Space Age in shorts sets and veiled mini-dresses. Wang softened the structure a bit in pants and skirts with attached wraparound peplums.

There were intricately wrought fabrics: fishnet bonded onto leather; an abstract floral that was first printed and then painted in rubber; a reproduced old ivy print that was crushed and cut out. These were up there with the best highly developed fabrics and showed the the fruits of fusion between an inventive designer and a house with major resources.

Alexander Wang for Balenciaga

For five years now Alexander Wang (28) has kicked off almost every single fashion season as one of the first designers to show during New York Fashion Week. Since 2007 the young designer has managed to generate raving reviews and created a solid international fanbase of people crazy for his sportswear inspired, edge creations. Wang has high profile fans all around the world; from Rihanna to Olivia Palermo and12 own stores even though the fashion house is still a family business.

And while the success of this young label continues to grow, Wang is taking on another challenge at Balenciaga (and will travel between New York and Paris to do so). As the new creative director of the Parisian fashion house Wang will follow in the footsteps of Nicolas Ghesquière, who left the house last month after 15 years. A new designer potentially means the start of a new Balenciaga era.

With Wang on board the French label might be able to reach a wider audience, create more selling points and perhaps even better price points. And maybe Balenciaga, which has been high end and exclusive (even the number of catwalk photographers allowed at shows was extremely limited) since it was founded by Cristobal Balenciaga in 1937, could use a bit of Wang’s American commercialism. Even though the label did very well with Ghesquière as it’s designer.

There’s no doubt Wang will do a great job as Ghesquière’s successor. But, what can we expect?

The sporty elements and the mixing of materials will stay, no doubt about that. Wang, who is already going through Balenciaga’s archives, might start experimenting with more colors and prints, something he never really did for his own (very black-oriented) label. We might start to see more of Balenciaga’s heritage brought back to live. Clothing may become more approachable once Wang’s extraordinary streetwise twist is added. And perhaps the thirties fashion house will get a modern touch up (even though this winter’s out of the blue galaxy prints were pretty futuristic) in order to reach a global audience.

Yet the CEO of Balenciaga’s parent company PPR, François-Henri Pinault, already stated not a whole lot is going to change: “The challenge taken by Alexander, which I really liked in discussions with him, is for him to express his talent in a different situation for another brand with its own DNA, and he’s absolutely excited with that.”

One thing’s for certain; his first autumn/winter 2013/2014 shake up is going to be a good one. And we can’t wait to take a sip from this Balenciaga-Wang cocktail.

Let’s take a look back on some of Wang’s most outstanding designs in the gallery below.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris SS2013

Skin was the big news at Balenciaga. Designer Nicolas Ghesquière told the press before the show that its was “the most sensual collection I’ve ever done”. It was all about  stiff ruffles, movement, a-symmetric cut and technical fabrics, dense embroideries that looked like tweeds,  lace fused to molded synthetics, and T-shirt knits dipped in glue for stiffness.
Ghesquière set the tone with the first model’s midriff-baring molded bra and high-waisted pants. And from there came out swinging, slitting long black skirts almost to the hipbone and edging them with deep ruffles.  Asymmetric skirts pushed the leg-theme further, and even the pantsuits were paired with  bra tops.

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