With his first Haute Couture collection for Balenciaga, Pierpaolo Piccioli reshapes Balenciaga couture for the present.
For his first couture collection as creative director of Balenciaga, Pierpaolo Piccioli returned to the house’s founding principles while pushing them into a distinctly contemporary space. The 55th Couture Collection explored couture as both a discipline and an act of experimentation, placing architecture, innovation, and the human body at the centre of the design process.
Silhouettes were sculpted through precise cutting and engineered construction. Cashmere coats and dresses were developed using three-dimensional body scans, with moulded leather structures hidden inside to create volume without heaviness. This tension between rigour and softness continued throughout the collection, as austere tailoring opened to reveal decorative details and fluid draping.
Textile innovation also played a central role. Balenciaga introduced AMSilk, a renewable bioengineered silk alternative with remarkable tensile strength, alongside a new interpretation of gazar, the fabric originally developed by Cristóbal Balenciaga. Used both externally and as internal support, the material gave the clothes their distinctive lightness and structure.
Sculptural feather creations developed with Philip Treacy blurred the line between millinery and garment, while repeated black silhouettes reduced selected looks to pure form.
“This collection is the result of a feeling,” Piccioli said. He also paid tribute to the atelier, describing couture as something “made by the people who live it”.
The result was a thoughtful debut that honoured Balenciaga’s heritage without resorting to nostalgia, reaffirming couture as a living, evolving craft.
