BALENCIAGA
What will Pierpaolo Piccioli reclaim after Demna?
The Balenciaga maison has always occupied a somewhat challenging position in every era.
It is not enough to simply make beautiful clothes. It is not enough to simply make new clothes either. This brand has always required construction, tension, the distance to the body, and critique of the times.
In 2025, Balenciaga reached a major turning point. After leading the house for about ten years, Demna moved to Gucci, and Pierpaolo Piccioli was appointed Balenciaga's Creative Director as his successor.
What makes this appointment interesting is that the two designers have such different temperaments.
Demna was a designer who transformed the dissonance and excess of modern society into the language of luxury. Meanwhile, Pierpaolo Piccioli has long honed at Valentino a beauty that embraces color, romanticism, couture-like elegance, and a sensitivity to human emotion.
So, what exactly will Pierpaolo Piccioli reclaim at Balenciaga? It should not be mere elegance or romantic beauty. Rather, isn’t it the quiet strength that Cristóbal Balenciaga originally possessed—one that makes people look beautiful without constraining the body, through fabric and space?
What Cristóbal Balenciaga created was,
It was not decoration but 'space.'
Balenciaga's origins lie in the maison founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga in Spain in 1917. Later, in 1937, he moved to Paris, where he earned overwhelming praise in the world of haute couture for his technical mastery, construction, and sense of proportion.
What made Cristóbal Balenciaga's clothes special wasn't simply that they adorned the female body. Rather, they created a space of fabric slightly away from the body, and that negative space made people look beautiful.
The balloon jackets, cocoon coats, sack dresses, and baby-doll dresses he introduced in the 1950s were all not tight-fitting. Rather than cinching the waist, they placed volume around the body. Instead of tracing curves, they created new silhouettes by the fabric's shapes.
Rather than tightly cinching the waist, it places volume around the body. Instead of tracing curves, it creates new silhouettes through the shape of the fabric.
The beauty here is born not from sweetness or ornament, but from the design of the clothing itself.
If Dior's New Look presented the postwar female ideal with flower-like curves, Balenciaga was a bit quieter and a bit more abstract. While making the body look beautiful, it did not speak too directly about the body itself. Therein lies Balenciaga's characteristic intelligence.
Therefore, when talking about Balenciaga, the word 'elegant' alone is not enough. At the core of this maison lies a highly sophisticated question: what distance to create between fabric and the body?
What Nicolas Ghesquière brought,
Futuristic Structure
Cristóbal Balenciaga's era, the maison went through a long, quiet period. Among those who significantly reshaped the image of modern Balenciaga was Nicolas Ghesquière.
From the late 1990s to the early 2010s, Ghesquière brought futuristic tension to Balenciaga. His Balenciaga did not simply nostalgically revisit Cristóbal's construction; rather, it translated it into the modern era through technology, sport, sci-fi sensibilities, and sharp material use.
Balenciaga, especially in the early 2000s, was cool, sharp, and somewhat futuristic. I believe its achievement was significant in bringing the image of a classic couture house closer to a cosmopolitan and fashion-forward brand.
Equally essential in discussing the Ghesquière era are the Motorcycle Bag, and later the City Bag. They feature soft leather, studs, tassels, lightness, and a presence that does not rely on logos. There was a slightly imperfect mood that differed from the stiff luxury bags of the time.
This bag demonstrated that Balenciaga is a maison capable of handling not only 'perfect construction' but also 'deconstructed beauty.' Cristóbal Balenciaga's architecturally inspired clothes and Nicolas Ghesquière's somewhat rebellious bags. Seemingly distant, the two are actually connected in that both move away from conventional beauty.
What Demna Changed.
Balenciaga became a brand that mirrors the era's unease.
2When Demna was appointed Balenciaga's Artistic Director in 2015, the house underwent another major transformation.
Demna's Balenciaga is not merely a brand that incorporates street. What he did was bring the excess, the eerie, the distortions of consumer society, and the way people are seen in the age of social media into luxury.
Extremely oversized silhouettes. Reinterpretations of sneakers and hoodies. An everyday image reminiscent of an IKEA bag. Logos, corporate uniforms, tourist souvenirs, celebrity culture, and a political atmosphere. Demna has made not only beauty but also the odd discomfort of modern society into clothing.
This holds a very significant meaning in Balenciaga's history. If Cristóbal redefined the relationship between body and fabric, Demna redefined the relationship between clothing and society.
Of course, that approach has always provoked both praise and criticism. The stronger the expression, the greater the risk. In fact, the issues surrounding Balenciaga's 2022 advertising campaign drew stringent questions about the brand's responsibility in its expression, and Balenciaga faced significant criticism.
However, it would be simplistic to reduce Demna's decade to merely 'controversy' or 'street.' In 2021, Balenciaga returned to haute couture for the first time in 53 years. This demonstrates Demna's sincere engagement with Cristóbal.
In other words, Demna was not the one who broke Balenciaga, but someone who reconnected it to the present with a rather rough touch. On the other hand, the maison needed to reclaim quietness, elegance, and trust in the clothing itself once again.
Pierpaolo Piccioli is,
What will he bring?
Pierpaolo Piccioli is a designer who has built a long career at Valentino. After a collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri, since 2016 he has led Valentino solo, shaping the brand's contemporary expression through color, romance, couture, and inclusive beauty.
His work wasn't based solely on flamboyant ornament. Rather, the distance that makes people look beautiful was crafted with great care.
Long flowing dresses. Silhouettes that don't constrict the body too much. Vivid colors. A soft gaze toward skin, age, gender. At Valentino, Pierpaolo showed a romantic beauty that was not confined to a classical feminine ideal.
This sense is quite interesting for Balenciaga, because Cristóbal Balenciaga's garments also carried a philosophy that did not tightly constrain the body.
However, what Pierpaolo should do at Balenciaga is not simply bring Valentino over as is. How to transform Valentino's romanticism into Balenciaga's construction. This is the biggest point of interest.
In Balenciaga's debut in October 2025, elements reminiscent of Cristóbal's sack dress and cocoon silhouettes, structural volume, and a sense of modern denim and leather were seen. There is a sense of intent to not entirely negate Balenciaga after Demna, but to return to Cristóbal's roots while connecting to today's wardrobe.
What should be reclaimed is,
Perhaps not elegance but "trust."
Then what will Pierpaolo reclaim at Balenciaga?
Is it simply elegance? Or couture-ness? Of course, that is also part of it.
But more broadly, I believe what he is trying to reclaim is "trust in clothes."
Demna's Balenciaga unsettled society through its clothing. It was highly modern and forceful. At the same time, the more provocative or critical elements came to the fore, the more the beauty of the garments and the wearer's emotions appeared to recede somewhat.
What is expected of Pierpaolo's Balenciaga is to return there once again to the realm of the human body and emotions.
Architectural yet not cold. Historical yet not nostalgic. Fashion-forward yet never leaving people behind. It combines couture techniques with wearability for modern clothing.
Architectural yet not cold. Historical yet not nostalgic. Fashion-forward yet never leaving people behind. It combines couture techniques with wearability for modern clothing.
This is no easy feat. Balenciaga carries an immense history, and Demna has also imbued it with a formidable modernity.
To embrace both, beauty alone is not enough. You must understand Cristóbal's method, know Ghesquière's sense of the future, acknowledge Demna's social orientation, and, above all, add Pierpaolo's own human warmth.
That is where the intrigue of this leadership change lies.
Balenciaga from here on.
Where is it headed?
Now Balenciaga is likely not heading toward an extreme pivot, but toward adjusting the sense of tension.
The strong social critique and provocation of the Demna era may be tempered slightly. Instead, the beauty of the fabric, the silhouette's completeness, couture technique, and the depth of color will come to the fore.
What I especially want to note is the handling of volume. At Balenciaga, volume is not simply about size. How it wraps the body. Where it lifts, where it drops. Where to create space.
If the fabric flow Pierpaolo has shown at Valentino fuses with Cristóbal Balenciaga's architectural space, there is potential for a very beautiful direction.
Another aspect is the redefinition of bags and small goods. Balenciaga has strong bags for each era, such as the City Bag from the Ghesquière era and the Hourglass from the Demna era. Will a new iconic bag emerge in the Pierpaolo era, or will existing codes be refined more quietly? This is commercially a key point.
And most importantly, whether Balenciaga will once again be regarded as a brand that people can trust to embody beauty.
The unsettling quality and modernity Demna produced were undoubtedly important. Yet in the next chapter, the question is how to translate that sharp edge into sophistication.
What Pierpaolo needs to reclaim is not the past itself. It is to translate Cristóbal's spirit into emotions that people today can wear. When that is achieved, Balenciaga will once again be a house that remains quietly in memory, not merely one that makes headlines.
Not merely beautiful. Not merely new.
Yet, clothes that quietly alter the wearer's body and the atmosphere of the times.
When viewing Balenciaga as MOOD, what draws you isn't easily captured by the phrase "a strong brand."
Cristóbal Balenciaga's structural rigor; Nicolas Ghesquière's sense of the future; Demna's sharp gaze toward society; and Pierpaolo Piccioli's human softness.
In each era Balenciaga has shown a different face. But at its core lies a strong conviction that clothing can alter how the body is seen, and even alter the atmosphere of the era.
What I hope to see from Pierpaolo's Balenciaga is not merely a return to refinement after Demna. Rather, it is to reintroduce the warmth of people into the very structure and tension Balenciaga originally possessed.
Not merely beautiful. Not merely new. Yet, the clothes quietly change the wearer's body and the atmosphere of the era.
How Balenciaga will rise from here is a crucial perspective for understanding the current state of luxury.
