Still relatively new to the maison, Pierpaolo Piccioli has had to carve out his own identity at Balenciaga following Demna's decade-long tenure at the helm. Adhering to the maison’s codes, Piccioli took Cristóbal Balenciaga’s pioneering couture techniques as gospel, reimagining ready-to-wear garments through the lens of couture. The late Balenciaga's foundational design philosophy was that the human body should be the basis of every garment; clothes should come secondary rather than forcing the body to fit them. Taking a page from this book, Piccioli similarly hones in on particular cuts, constructions, and how they respond to the body in his Summer 2027 collection.
In the collection, Piccioli reimagines cut, proportion, and construction to work in conjunction with the body rather than against it. Bias cuts, for instance, extended beyond evening dresses into jeans and men’s suiting, a new introduction for the maison.
Elongated torsos were achieved through basque shapes in leather and cotton; a nod to archival Balenciaga silhouettes, while shoes moulded to the foot rather than constricting it as seen in the unstructured Lounge Sneaker and the heeled Dahlia Mule. Draping techniques were not confined to clothing but translated into accessories through the supple Nodo bag, achieved through the skilled hand-draping of leather.
The jewelry, aptly named Getaria after the Basque fishing town and birthplace of Cristóbal Balenciaga, took the form of wearable seashells. Each piece contributed to the overall architecture of a look: necklaces rose toward the earrings, creating a subtle and elegant connection between the face and upper body.
Attention to detail was key throughout this collection; decorative elements were anything but an afterthought. Calais lace inserts and cutwork were expertly woven into the structure of each piece, rather than simply applied as decoration. Organza flowers were filled with compressed air, in an arrangement that fell across the body like coral polyps, referencing the collection’s inspiration, Aude Franjou’s Les Coraux de la Liberté. Much like a coral reef, Piccioli approached the collection as an accumulation of small parts forming a greater whole: garments took on a dynamic quality that shifted with the wearer’s movement, revealing subtle folds, openings and purposeful layers.
