Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Fundamentals At Balenciaga Haute Couture

Since Pierpaolo Piccioli stepped away from Valentino, there has been a PP-shaped hole at couture week. Then the news came that the Italian designer would be taking on Balenciaga, a house steeped in couture history, and all would be well again. Piccioli—who has now been at the helm of Balenciaga for almost a year—marked his debut back into the couture circuit today, now with the legacy of Cristóbal Balenciaga to uphold. 

Piccioli’s approach to couture has always been simple, effective, and rooted in the principle of the craft—all elements that make sense when paired with the essence of Balenciaga as a couturier. Most of the discussion leading up to the-show involved people gushing over Piccioli’s nimble approach to couture; the anticipation was that this would really be his moment. 

And so there we were: on the outskirts of Paris, gathered in the circular garden of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, baking under the early afternoon sun for Balenciaga’s 55th couture collection. The first exit was immediately Piccioli: a pair of oversized beige palazzo trousers, a silk white t-shirt cut off the body, and a neon coral balloon jacket with embroidered satin feathers. We’ve seen this silhouette from him at Valentino, but this time, the codes of Cristóbal’s legacy began to show through. The balloon silhouette has been crucial to Balenciaga since it was introduced in 1953, and today, Piccioli worked it into jackets and oversized skirts; Balenciaga’s Fall/Winter 1950 haute couture dress for Hattie Carnegie was reworked into a black evening gown made of silk chiffon, and the iconic cape silhouette was offered in a two-piece crafted of silk taffeta.

Then, there was the sack dress, which Piccioli adapted for a contemporary wearer. There was a silk and wool t-shirt dress that carried the same essence, plus a slouchy vibrant yellow sequin gown. One standout look, which Gigi Hadid wore down the runway, was adapted from a 1967 look with a voluminous mass of fabric surrounding the face; today, Piccioli reinterpreted it with rooster feathers (he famously so loves working with feathers).

One of Piccioli’s most endearing qualities is his dedication to appreciating the couturiers that work tirelessly on these collections. In his show notes, he thanked them for their commitment, credited each maker with each corresponding look and, as is his tradition, bowed with the white-jacketed makers after the finale. There were other moments that felt quintessentially him, too. The use of color, for one, which, despite being part of Balenciaga’s history, felt much more synonymous with him in that moment. So did his use of crisp, oversized shirting and silk racerback tank tops paired with evening skirts—another overlapping moment for both Piccioli and Balenciaga’s sensibilities. Then there was the focus on the body, his best instinct when it comes to couture, which was revealed via low scoop necklines, hooded capes, and drop waist trousers—these were the moments that truly gave away Piccioli’s presence at the house.

Most of what the designer has been doing at Balenciaga with ready-to-wear is about subtraction—pulling everything back and offering a fresh perspective for this post-Demna world. Couture proved no different. He is a fundamentalist in this way, and this was on full display today as he distilled his philosophy directly into the clothing, which will no doubt be appreciated on the red carpet and by plenty of Balenciaga’s biggest clientele. The only question left, is what happens when the hype is stripped from a brand who, for almost a decade, created a different world that relied on irony and the provocation culture? But Piccioli is not, and has never been one to involve himself with the optics of fashion. He is far too carried away with making beautiful clothes.