Godfrey Deeny 03 October 2007
Paris - If Catherine de Medici were to show up as a gamine in France today, instead of back in 1533 when she was a princess of 14, methinks she would have found everything she needed to wow this city in the wonderfully innovative collection presented by Balenciaga Tuesday in Paris.
The entire first half of the collection was composed of courtly attire, tunic dresses with pronounced mansard shoulders, nipped waists and flared hips. But Balenciaga's iconoclastic designer Nicolas Ghesquiere completely subverted the image, reinventing it by creating all in outlandish fabrics. Prints drawn from nature, but with leaves, flowers and petals all blotched, stretched, darkened and maimed made the result tough and dramatic, never saccharine and really new.
Paired with to the knee leggings that were a blend of Roman centurion protective shin guards and Comanche knee socks, though with spike heels, they gave the ensembles great punch and originality.
The sheer audacity, technical dexterity and extremity of vision are always impressive at Balenciaga. Take a foursome of taught mini dresses razimir, but treated and puckered to a fabric somewhere between a Jackson Pollock swirl and Francis Bacon's palette.
One of the reasons that fashion insiders really love Ghesquiere is the odd dichotomy that even though his ideas are highly influential they are not easily copied, meaning his cool looks won't be immediately turning up in H&M or Zara. It also sets Nicolas that bit apart from his most influential peers, Miuccia Prada, Consuelo Castiglioni, John Galliano or, looking back, Helmut Lang, whose ideas were more easily flinched by mass chains. In a word, Balenciaga won't be on the hoi polloi soon.
"I wanted the color of flowers but not their niceness, where the look was gentle yet tough," the designer told FWD.
His space goddess finale, heroic silk dresses in gold, marble gray and jade, climaxed a great show, staged with the usual verve and wit. Once again, Balenciaga had Europe's best casting, marked by the catwalk return of the ever lovely, and now mum of three, Natalia Vodianova, freed of her Calvin Klein exclusive contract. Also intriguingly, the usual maize catwalk was set on a new wall-to-wall flower carpet with unsettling black background. And the soundtrack was scintillating, in a canny remix that ranged from Vivaldi's Four Seasons to the Chemical Brothers, courtesy of mix maestro Michel Gaubert.
They only let 200 people into any Balenciaga show, 2,000 more would kill for tickets. Everyone there went back stage to applaud Ghesquiere, whose one show was a rebuttal to the entire Milan season. A trumpet call that said the Italians might make great merchandise but this is where the heavy stuff goes down.
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