Balenciaga at the gym? Really?
Well, yes, if the second collection from Pierpaolo Piccioli is to be believed. After the last round of fashion shows, more big fashion houses changed designers than ever before; now, how exactly those brands will look is beginning to come into focus. Balenciaga, for which Mr. Piccioli on Thursday unveiled his fall line for men and women (and his first stab at Balenciaga men’s wear), is the latest example.
Following, two fashion critics at The New York Times debate what the fall line means — and, more important, what you may want to wear.
VANESSA FRIEDMAN There was a lot about this collection that seemed to reflect a general shift in fashion as the new wave of creative directors takes over the big houses.
Clearly, Pierpaolo is keeping certain signatures of Demna, his predecessor — going for continuity rather than wholesale change — while at the same time softening the edges and making everything a little more accessible for the general fashion customer. So sneakers now work not just as fashion statements, but actual performance shoes (and the loafers have sneaker engineering so they are extra-comfortable). You can wear them to the gym with your new Balenciaga leggings, and throw a coat with a classic Balenciaga sac silhouette over it all for the street. Is that juxtaposition smart, or jarring?
JACOB GALLAGHER To me, it’s pragmatic. Those sporty-formal divides that once guided fashion are as archaic as faxes. The mix is the thing now. And it has been for a while. What I see here is Pierpaolo reacting to the hodgepodge way of dressing he sees on the street. But I will say there remains something dated about the notion of designer athleisure. It reeks of 2011. (And I can’t imagine people will work out in those hulking, if Ozempic-ed, sneakers. Or maybe I just don’t know enough billionaires willing to batter their four-figure sneakers on the treadmill.)
The collection is on firmer footing when it serves up actual clothes. There are some great shapes here.
FRIEDMAN You love wide, cropped pant legs! What I loved were the ideas that were borrowed from activewear, if we want to call it that, but incorporated into the fashion pieces rather than mixed and matched.
I am thinking, for example, of the daffodil yellow leather jacket with a cocoon back that was coated to be waterproof, and the jersey gowns that were seemingly a piece of stretch fabric twisted and draped around the body, with a long train that could also be twisted and draped. Laufey, a new “friend” of the house, wore one to the Golden Globes. They are dresses that cover up the bits of the body that tend to make people self-conscious, and create shapes without corsetry or other constricting internal structures.
Personally, I appreciate a dress that allows you to sit down and eat.
GALLAGHER I mean, the barrel jeans with a drop-sleeve coat and white socks with black loafers? Sign me up.
When we spoke with Pierpaolo, he said he didn’t want things to feel cynical. That comes through. Critics of the Balenciaga guided by Demna protested that it was too aggressive, too much of an alienating in-joke. The edges have been sanded off here, I’d say. It’s a more palatable, mainstream interpretation of the collection. Pants are oversize but not overwhelming. Jersey tops have one logo, not 18. Hems are frayed, but there aren’t the hole-explosion jeans the label offered in the recent past.
Do you think it might be playing it too safe for the Balenciaga shoppers who expect the extreme?
FRIEDMAN I think it’s more like a segue to a different Balenciaga, but rather than reject what’s gone before, Pierpaolo is trying to incorporate it. That’s a different philosophy of joining a label than we’re used to. In recent years, it often felt as if new designers would come into old houses and immediately try to erase the memory of the last guy, like washing the Augean Stables clean.
The Demna-isms don’t feel entirely natural in Pierpaolo’s hands, and I am not sure that, as you say, anyone is or should be looking to Balenciaga for their workout wear. But I appreciate the effort. Even if I like the nods to even older Balenciaga history — especially the peacoats with the rounded shoulders and big polka-dot-like buttons, and the leather shawl jackets — a lot more than the leggings.
Bottom line: These are clothes that seem easy to wear but also sophisticated, and this feels like a moment when no one really has space in their life for clothes that require too much effort and attention. I think Pierpaolo is reading the room correctly.
GALLAGHER I agree. Here are clothes that don’t require much deeper thought — neither as a spectator nor as a wearer. That, in this case, is a good thing.
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