Designer appointed to bring broader appeal to revered label takes 'semi-fitted' silhouette as touchstone
Balenciaga is the single most rarified name on the Paris fashion week schedule. Cristobal Balenciaga, who died in 1972, was the fashion designer's designer, the man of whom Christian Dior said: "He is the maestro, the rest of us just musicians." The names of Chanel and Dior may pack more punch in modern popular culture, but the cognoscenti revere the legacy of Balenciaga above all others.
The recent appointment of Alexander Wang as the house's new designer was therefore something of an eyebrow-raiser. How can a 29-year-old designer whose clothes are rooted in the Californian beach culture of his teens and the downtown New York slouch-chic of his student years make sense of Balenciaga, which for the past 15 years has been steered by the very French, very intense Nicolas Ghesquiere?
Wang's debut suggested that the commercial instincts which led PPR, the luxury brand group behind Balenciaga, to hire him were shrewd. Francois-Henri Pinault of PPR has said he hopes Wang's Balenciaga will be "approachable", which is an only slightly coded way of saying he hopes it will sell. There is frustration within PPR that the reverence in which Balenciaga is held within the fashion world does not translate into brand visibility on a wider scale. The Lariat bag was the one barnstorming commercial success by Ghesquiere, who otherwise continued in the grand Balenciaga tradition of making exquisite clothes aimed rather narrowly at a fashion elite.
The stardust in Wang's own-label collections at New York fashion week has always been a sixth sense about what young women want to wear, and it is that connection which PPR hope he can bring to Balenciaga. Backstage, Wang referred to the show as "the first chapter" in a mission to retell the story of Balenciaga so that it strikes a chord with a broader audience. Where Ghesquiere's design processes were intricate and multi-layered, Wang's approach was to present the subtle, nuanced codes of Balenciaga in a new, simple way. As Wang commented after the show, Balenciaga himself "took the avant-garde, and made it everyday".
This was a confident, uncomplicated debut. For chapter one, Wang took as his touchstone the "semi-fitted" silhouette which was Balenciaga's response to the hourglass New Look with which Christian Dior seduced the postwar fashion world. Semi-fitted jackets accentuate the waist at the front, but are puffed with volume at the back, a shape which Wang infused with a new sportiness. The rounded shoulders which are a Balenciaga signature were given a playful teddy-bear fur finish. In the draping of a cutaway evening dress there was a nod to the loose fit of the racer-back vests which are a signature of Wang's own label collection – but here on the Avenue George V, a gleaming sculpted bodice was glimpsed beneath. While the silhouette made reference to Balenciaga's mid-century rivalry with Dior, the slick, minimal take on couture suggested that the aesthetic of Wang's Balenciaga might run alongside, rather than diametrically opposed to, that of Christian Dior under its current designer, Raf Simons.
The debut was imbued with cool precision. The venue was the historic headquarters of Balenciaga on the Avenue George V, where a suite of elegant first floor rooms were made over in stark monochrome: whitewashed walls, doorframes picked out in black paint, the parquet a deep black walnut. Window boxes were filled with black-sprayed box hedge, out of which grew slim budded branches rising to the top of the glass to make the prettiest of blackout blinds and protect the carefully calibrated lighting from rogue sunbeams. The slim silver benches padded with black velvet snaked maze-like around endless corners, so that the audience were given a view of each outfit from different angles as the models turned: crucial at a house where silhouette has always ruled over decoration.
The message that shape is key was underlined at every stage, even in the decorative motifs themselves, by the theme of marble. The invitations were backed with an image of white-veined black marble, while the catwalk was a reverse image of black-on-white. Marbled green and black fur and a stunning intarsia knit which mimicked a cracked, marbled finish featured, as did sections of marbled lining exposed in a simple, chic touch where the edges of a neckline were pinned back.
This collection will be judged by Wang's new bosses not by how well-received it is by those who attended Thursday's show, but by whether it can reach a new audience. Pinault recently told CBS that Wang "is young and has a very universal culture. He is American with Chinese roots. His family are based in Shanghai." Wang, who speaks Mandarin, has a high profile in China where his own-label already has a Beijing flagship. There seems little doubt this is part of his appeal to PPR. Balenciaga has recently stepped up its Asian presence, with new openings taking the total number of stores in mainland China to 11. Isabelle Guichot, Balenciaga's CEO, said recently: "We have huge ambitions, and we have huge reserves of growth."