Key facts
- Pierpaolo Piccioli debuted his first Balenciaga couture collection.
- The collection featured vibrant colors and modern designs, blending Balenciaga's signature shapes with Piccioli's aesthetic.
- Key looks included ballooning gowns, hooded feather cocoons, and a finale with Gigi Hadid in rooster feathers.
- Paris couture week explored themes of the body, fantasy, and technology.
- Luxury houses are relying on newly appointed designers to revitalize the market.
Pierpaolo Piccioli made his highly anticipated debut as the creative director for Balenciaga's haute couture line, presenting his first collection for the storied fashion house. The show, held during Paris couture week, aimed to blend Balenciaga's signature architectural silhouettes with Piccioli's own vibrant and modern aesthetic. The collection featured voluminous gowns, cocoon-like shapes, and bold colors, with a notable finale involving a model engulfed in rooster feathers. Piccioli was joined by his entire atelier for his bow, receiving a standing ovation. This debut capped a four-day couture season that explored themes of the human body, escapism through fantasy, and the integration of technology, such as lab-grown silk and 3D body scans, into the craft of couture. The luxury market, facing a two-year slump, is looking to newly installed designers like Piccioli, Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, and Silvana Armani at Armani Privé to re-energize sales.
Designers across the week experimented with how to present the figure: exposing it, armoring it, inflating it, or making it disappear. Silvana Armani's Armani Privé collection offered a restrained take on the body, playing with cover and reveal. Daniel Roseberry at Schiaparelli treated flesh as raw material, using corsets molded into torsos and silicone details. Piccioli at Balenciaga and Iris van Herpen pushed the concept of erasing the body, using 3D scans and voluminous shapes at Balenciaga, and dissolving the figure with glass beads at van Herpen's show.
Amidst a heat wave and global uncertainties, designers also leaned into fantasy. Elie Saab presented a masked ball, Zuhair Murad explored a darker garden theme, and Stéphane Rolland paid tribute to singer Dalida. Chanel and Dior also showcased collections with fairy tale and sculptural elements, respectively. The intersection of technology and craftsmanship was another key theme, with Schiaparelli using unconventional materials and Iris van Herpen experimenting with a dress treated with a particle accelerator. Balenciaga concluded by showcasing lab-grown silk alongside its human-centric atelier presentation, emphasizing that couture in the future seeks an impossible balance of the physical and the conceptual, the fantastical and the commercially viable, and the machine-made with the human touch.