Can Balenciaga change the narrative?

At Balenciaga’s autumn/winter 2023 show on Sunday morning, François-Henri Pinault, the billionaire chair of Balenciaga owner Kering, and Cédric Charbit, the brand’s chief executive, walked up and down the front row smiling and shaking hands with editors.

The handshaking, and the show that followed, were meant to spark a reset at Balenciaga, which was Kering’s second-fastest growing brand until a pair of ad campaigns — one showcasing children alongside bondage-inspired accessories and empty wine glasses — backfired late last year, leading US cable channel Fox News to (sensationally) accuse the brand of promoting paedophilia.

Charbit and Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia (who prefers to go by only his first name professionally) took more than a week to apologise for the campaign and condemn child abuse. Sales took a hit, and Kim Kardashian, the brand’s principal ambassador and campaign star, has publicly distanced herself from the brand.

She and other celebrities were missing at Sunday’s show, held in the subterranean Carrousel du Louvre, a storied if modest show venue by Balenciaga standards. Missing too were the awe-inspiring show sets of the past few seasons, which saw models (and Kanye West) trudging through mud pits and blizzard-like conditions, to be replaced by a windowless space carpeted in clean white muslin, the material traditionally used to work out the shape of garments before fabric is tacked on.

That left the eye to rest on the models and the clothes. In a note left on each guest’s seat, Demna wrote that fashion had become “an entertainment”, and that he wanted to refocus on its essence — “the art of making clothes”. That mainly meant tailoring, with wide-shouldered jackets that blended seamlessly into the top halves of trousers — pockets and belt-loops included — and trousers cut with four legs instead of two.

Was it a different Balenciaga? Not at all. The casting was much the same. As were the ways the models’ bodies were enlarged and distorted through cut and proportion. Rounded and high-shouldered men’s jackets in black leather made the models look hunchbacked and predatory — interesting, yes, but perhaps not the best look for Balenciaga right now. The pleated, cape-back evening dresses may do more for its image rehabilitation, if the brand can get them on the red carpet again (it worked for Dolce & Gabbana).

It felt more like a reset — and a very good one — at fellow Kering brand Alexander McQueen, which on Saturday returned to the Paris Fashion Week schedule for the first time since the start of the pandemic. It was also the first under Gianfilippo Testa, who joined Alexander McQueen as chief executive officer last May from fellow Kering brand Gucci.

Actor Eddie Redmayne, unmissable in a red coat, looked on as the model Naomi Campbell stepped out in an immaculately tailored black jumpsuit swept in a double arc at the breast. A pair of wide-leg black leather trousers with a deep single-pleat front, suits with hand-painted pinstripes and simple, perfect trenchcoats in beige cotton and aubergine leather were further testament to the brand’s tailoring abilities. For the red carpet, there were anatomical dresses in technical fabrics and white braided wool that hinted at the skeletal and muscular structures of the bodies beneath.

Backstage, designer Sarah Burton, who worked with Lee McQueen for 14 years before she succeeded him as creative director in 2010, said she wanted to get “almost back to the beginnings of McQueen”, which meant a return to tailoring and Savile Row, where McQueen learnt his craft. “During Covid, working at home, you had to really work with what you had,” Burton explained. “So we went back to construction, went back to techniques of tailoring and dressmaking, that felt like very early McQueen, where we began.”

“It feels important to be grounded now,” she continued. “The world is in such chaos.” It’s another reason for wanting to shift the conversation back to clothes.