Pierpaolo Piccioli’s couture debut reimagines Balenciaga in his own colourful image

Italian designer brings sculptural silhouettes and playful palettes to the storied house, while it is hats off to Giorgio’s niece at her second Armani Privé couture show The house of Balenciaga takes haute couture very seriously indeed. Cristóbal Balenciaga was so horrified by the rise of mass-produced clothes that, in 1968, he abruptly shuttered his brand and retired to his native Spain, announcing that “high fashion is mortally wounded”. So Pierpaolo Piccioli, who now helms the house, appro...

By Jess Cartner-Morley in Paris