Balenciaga restarts with Piccioli's signature light austerity
The designer brings his vision, convincingly, to the Kering group's maison. For Hermès ride in the Camargue, return to his roots for Glenn Martens on his debut at Maison Margiela
Reducing: an ever valid perspective, invigorating at any moment in history, helping to tame abundance or accept hard times, or simply reminding us how much beauty there is in subtraction. The sixth day of the Paris fashion shows sees the reductionists come out into the open.
Pierpaolo Piccioli is a lyrical purist, whose entry, announced in May, into the Balenciaga maison, temple of austere and architectural fashion - with recent highly successful expressionist deviations by Demna - immediately seemed like a fateful event: the right person in the right place. The debut show confirms the initial impression even though there is much to put right, not for lack of ability, but because the vision does not appear clear and the message is evidently fragmented in multiple, discordant directions. At first glance, the saturated colours, the taste for verticality and the sense of inapparent virtuosity immediately recall Piccioli's Valentino, almost as if this might be the day after.
It is a substantial part of what is seen on the catwalk, which smacks of what has already been seen, but which is mixed with an attempt at something harder, tighter, black - very interesting - something more suitable for the street - bomber jackets, chinos: to be fine-tuned - and more flourescent lightnesses and sack dresses. Finding a key to interpretation - given Balenciaga's successes and the current type of audience - is certainly not straightforward, but the desire to get there by going down many roads is evident, and confusing.
This is a character that is being seen in many collections at the moment: the choice of doing not everything but everything, chasing the philosopher's stone of transversal success. A theory understandable in shops, less so on the catwalk. If there is a designer capable of using a collection in a declarative and concise manner, it is Piccioli, and Balenciaga is the place to do it.
Glenn Martens makes his debut at Maison Margiela, leaving the last theatre behind to immerse himself in the everyday, which was then what Martin Margiela did. With resoluteness and observance, he makes a decisive return to the founding code, kept alive until now only by MM6 - the sister line with which conflicts could henceforth arise - and focuses on a severe and vertical silhouette, sober and subdued, which becomes exploration territory for virtuosities and experiments both archival and new, from the fusion of scotch and dress to shadow effects with linings coming out, to the integration of plastrons and evening scarves in the garments.
