July 9, 2026 |
“This is Balenciaga couture, now,” announced Pierpaolo Piccioli, whose couture debut for the house was the talk of Paris. This is a man capable of moving his audience to tears with the ravishing beauty of his haute creations. The metier belongs to him.
At Valentino he was undoubtedly inspired by Cristóbal Balenciaga’s couture volumes and sense of queenly grandeur but what would he do now that he has access to the source code itself?
The show notes stated his intention, to key into “The notion of Couture, the nature of Couture, entirely reconsidered for our contemporaneity.”
So a silk gazer balloon bomber delivered the kind of haute volumes only achievable in couture but was worn with a simple white silk tank and billowing silk trousers – unstuffy but undoubtedly grand. Similarly a black floor length T-shirt dress, accentuated with a white scarf-collar and cuffs telegraphed effortless (but cut to perfection) chic.
Piccioli embraced couture drama, sending out fluffy “Monsters Inc” style trousers made with thousands of purple ostrich feathers or fronds of scarlet curled organza.
Striking funnel shaped necklines featured on hourglass dresses, whilst dense ruffles of pink gazar swelled onto a dramatic balloon skirt. The designer showed several cocoon-style dresses which curved around the body, and his couture version of the City bag comes in dazzling crystal livery.
His mastery of colour continues at Balenciaga with the designer composing exquisite combination, but how has his aesthetic evolved at his new house?
At Valentino, swoonsome romance was a signature. At Balenciaga the designer brought a sharpness of line and graphic edge to his silhouettes. The show closed with a series of architectural looks – from a gown made with stacked shocking pink circular volumes to the super-sized, black rooster feather hood worn by Gigi Hadid. Piccioli took his bow with his atelier to a standing ovation. He paid tribute to them in his show notes, naming the artisans who worked on each piece. Without their skills he reasons, couture could not exist, describing them as the “human beings who are couture.”
“This collection is a result of a feeling” he explained. Together with the atelier, he said “We built our own language full of new words and timeless ones. We searched we tried we remembered. “ Balenciaga, now? It combines grandeur with beauty and pits human creativity at its beating heart.
Photography courtesy of Balenciaga.
