Balenciaga. Couture 2026 - Paris
Pierpaolo Piccioli's 1st couture showing since taking the reins of Balenciaga from Demna Gsvalia, who was, after 10 years with the iconic brand name, able to muster up five couture shows. And Piccioli being no stranger to couture, with 30 shows under his own belt when he was once the creative director for Valentino, which, in my opinion, the Italian designer excelled and mastered the craft with a grand finesse.
And while Demna reworked couture as an anti-fashion backlash, extending his Vetements-esque injoke of Eastern European 1990s back alley raves and exaggerated street wear silhouettes, although he has now toned down quite considerably now with Gucci, Piccioli has shown how a postmodern sleekness can actually work under his current tenure with Balenciaga.
There is undoubtedly a rebellious sexual nature of Piccioli's Balenciaga, ironically seen in a more subtle way, for his seasonal collections, with his first couture showing holding an amorous resonance, and since sex has been commodified and sexualized in the last 30 years, yes, we can blame Gen X for this, it has truly loss it counterculture shine. Can it be reinvigorated through the Fashion world? Maybe.
Piccioli held his couture exposé within the majestic grounds of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, which was created in 1925 as a reinvigoration of French Utopism. And if you know your French World War One history, and how widespread Marxism was throughout France, post World War One, then replaced, after the devastation of the First World War, with Solidarism, which we all know today as Centralism. Which, as we all know, has shifted to Proto-Fascism (globally), and specifically, ala France's de Gaul's ghost of "Article 49.3", which shifts Centralism into Authortism. Is Piccioli offering a subtle hint here in regards to the follies of State power and collective control in relation to the Left and Right of politics? Probably not.
Regardless, history is fascinating, and particularly French political history, and since the whole world is sliding towards, or already sitting in the cesspool of the Far Right, maybe we should dust off some of the old history books before they're thrown onto the digital bonfire.
A beautiful collection by Piccioli.
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(A.Glass 2026)
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