Up Close With Pierpaolo's Best (and Maybe Last) Balenciaga Collection
If this is Pierpaolo Piccioli's final Balenciaga collection, he's going out on a high note. Make that a light note: the designer's Spring/Summer 2027 Balenci lineup is perhaps the house's lightest ever.
Rumors of Piccioli's Balenciaga departure have been popping off online for a few weeks now, with not a grain of substance backing them up. Sure, plenty of designers have been rumored to leave plenty of houses, but this is more than just the usual rumor mill at work, or so it feels from the inside of it all.
Not that you'd know it from Piccioli's latest Balenciaga offering.
In his strongest season to date, the Valentino veteran proposed a convincing collection of approachably elegant garments under the theme of "lightness," he told Highsnobiety backstage. "Balenciaga is all about shape, lightness, volume," he said, underscoring that until now, lightness "has been a bit forgotten."
Highsnobiety went up close with Piccioli's latest at a post-runway re-see in Paris and, indeed, this is light stuff. Beautifully light, in fact, in tone and weight. Some of this stuff makes you think: this is Balenciaga? But in a good way.
Whereas Piccioli's predecessor, Demna, steered the house towards gigantic dragging jeans and gigantic-er heavyweight shoes, the modern Balenciaga has never felt floatier.
You've seen torso-swallowing Balenciaga bomber jackets before but they've never felt so breezy. Giant Balenciaga cargos are now shockingly light. And who could've expected Balenciaga sneakers so crispy they literally fold up into themselves? In fact, most of the shoes are either low profile or absurdly low profile, their leather uppers pre-squished.
There was a move towards airier stuff in the latter days of Demna's Balenciaga but it was sparse. Likewise, Piccioli's Balenciaga hasn't felt this light before — or as cohesive.
Is it unfair to compare two different creative directors? Maybe so, because the best thing about Demna's Balenciaga was often that it often produced the kind of clothes anyone could wear anywhere (and often did). I say all of luxury could take a page from that book.
Piccioli is most comfortable with flourishes of flashy luxury, rather than grab-and-go wearables. And his latest is still rich with flouncy gowns and dramatic applique-laden skirts, but the best bits are clever and cool, riffing on his athleisure-leaning "Techwear" motif — layered shirts fitted with coaches-style pull tabs and those amazing bombers — without being fashion-as-fantasy aloof. Very nice.
Turns out, Balenciaga's lightest collection ever is also Piccioli's most grounded.
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