Piccioli’s direction for Balenciaga is becoming increasingly clear. Balenciaga SS27 is moving into a more cohesive new world
Bringing the house’s couture heritage into a wardrobe that feels more everyday, while moving away from the heavier, more aggressive language of recent seasons. But with reports that his position at the house could already be in question, Balenciaga SS27 also raises a less comfortable question: how much time does a new creative direction get to prove itself?
Miss Tweed reported last week that Piccioli could leave Balenciaga after the SS27 show, while neither the house nor Kering has confirmed the possibility. Vanity Teen explored the situation in its recent “BALENCIAGA, THE ONE-YEAR EXPERIMENT”, looking at the challenges surrounding Piccioli’s first year at the house. One important note is that the brand is currently launching an exclusive collection with Mytheresa, live from today.
SS27 makes his intentions easier to read
SS27 feels like a much clearer answer than some of his earlier collections. The wardrobe starts almost completely in everyday territory: denim, shirts, T-shirts, bombers, leather jackets, tailoring and very baggy trousers gathered around the ankle. But the techniques behind them are anything but ordinary.
Topstitching becomes a way of creating volume across cotton and leather, while narrow waists reference the Basque silhouettes of Cristóbal Balenciaga without simply reproducing them. Couture construction is being moved onto pieces that are supposed to belong in an everyday wardrobe.
And then the collection starts getting much less everyday.
There are huge sculptural bags, sequins, sheer dresses, feathers and enormous floral forms. A series of imaginary flowers in organza are inflated to almost absurd proportions, while a giant coral-like sculpture by French artist Aude Franjou sits in the middle of the runway.
The colours are doing a lot of the work too. Royal blue, magenta, orange and dark green interrupt the beige, black and white wardrobe, with bright pink sneakers repeatedly breaking through the quieter looks.
Compared to the more aggressive silhouettes of recent Balenciaga seasons, this feels surprisingly gentle.
Piccioli is clearly moving the house towards something more refined, tactile and couture-driven. His first Balenciaga haute couture collection in July already made that direction obvious, with huge volumes, feathers and intense colour. SS27 takes those ideas and asks what happens when they are applied to jeans, T-shirts and leather jackets instead.
It is an interesting proposition. But is it Balenciaga enough for the audience the house built under Demna?
That younger audience was brought in through oversized silhouettes, sneakers, irony, celebrity culture and a deliberately rougher attitude. Piccioli is now asking the same house to speak through construction, craftsmanship and couture.
The question isn’t whether one approach is better than the other. It is whether the second can keep the cultural connection of the first.
Because looking at the individual pieces, the answer feels promising. Looking at the collection as a whole, everything is almost too controlled. The colours work together, the silhouettes are polished, the references are carefully placed. There is a gentleness here that Balenciaga hasn’t been particularly known for.
And perhaps that is exactly why the timing of the rumours feels so uncomfortable.
Piccioli has barely had a year to move one of fashion’s most recognisable houses from one identity into another. If he is leaving, was the experiment actually given enough time to become something?
Or was the problem never really Piccioli’s clothes, but the expectation that a new Balenciaga had to prove itself immediately?
For now, SS27 makes the direction pretty clear. Piccioli wants Balenciaga to be less about armour and more about the construction underneath it. Less about chasing the next cultural moment, more about making the clothes themselves interesting again.
Whether he gets to take that idea any further remains the much bigger question.
And with the soundtrack opening on “Ready or Not, Here I Come,” the timing felt almost suspiciously perfect.
