London – Balenciaga has set its sights on winning the hearts of men
around the world. The French fashion house has revealed it will be
launching its debut men’s wear collection for Spring 2017, under the
guidance of its new artistic director,
In order to present the new venture, which is certainly a first for the
99-year old fashion house, Balenciaga will host a catwalk show on June 22
during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. “The show will debut the masculine vision
of Balenciaga’s new artistic director Demna Gvasalia,” said Balenciaga to
WWD in a statement on Thursday.
The Georgian designer joined the team at Balenciaga last autumn, succeeding
former creative director Alexander Wang. The Vetement co-founder – who
designed menswear for his own label – staged his first ready-to-wear
women’s wear catwalk show for Balenciaga this March to much acclaim. The
collection, which featured his new vision for Balenciaga, saw the
designer’s signature androgynous aesthetic and unique silhouette rework and
applied to the fashion house archive. It will be interesting to see if
Gvasalia translates any of his aesthetics for Vetements to men’s wear for
Balenciaga and how he will use the fashion house’s archive.
Balenciaga and
Demna Gvasalia, along with Alessandro Michele, featured on one of the four
covers of @Tmagazine available this Sunday, April 17 inside the @nytimes
issue and at Tmagazine.com. Shot by #JuergenTeller. #balenciaga
#FW16A photo posted by Balenciaga
(@balenciaga) on Apr
15, 2016 at 1:58am PDTWith more and more fashion houses, such as Burberry and even making the decision to shun
traditional catwalk format and merge their catwalk shows into a single
event for men’s and women’s, the question remains if Balenciaga will be
following in their footsteps anytime soon.Photos: Balenciaga FW16, Facebook