Julia Sandman

Friday, March 1, 2013

Wang for Balenciaga

Everybody has been waiting for Wang's first collection for Balenciaga, and it was shown
in Paris today. I love Wang and his designs but am frankly somewhat disappointed.

Balenciaga is one of my favourite brands and I absolutely love Nicolas Ghesquière's last
collection for Balenciaga, the Spring/Summer 2013. And I mean absolutely adore, I could
use every single piece from the collection.

Yes, I know that Wang is young and he didn't have much time to prepare the collection.
And yes, he didn't really have time to settle in yet. But even though Balenciaga is
minimalistic with a futuristic take (FW12) and they are damn good at black and white pieces,
wasn't Wang's collection a little too simple, and honestly a little too dull? There were some
really nice pieces (the shoes, the snake-patterned sweaters) but there was almost not a
single stroke of colour.

Here are the opening looks from Ghesquière's SS13(left) Balenciaga show and Wang's
FW13(right) Balenciaga show, up for your comparison.

Even though the opening looks are both very simple and minimalistic, they do not seem to
represent the same brand, and I would personally go for the left one(Ghesquière's).

So Alexander Wang has has had an ok start at Balenciaga, but he has got a lot of work to
do for the next show to be able to live up to the expectations people have of the creative
director at this amazing brand.

I look forward to see his next collection but until then here are some photos of the outfits
that I did like from his SS13 Balenciaga collection.