Balenciaga F/W 01.02 Paris

[Lola701]

That's true for most of his work at Vuitton. It might be part of the brand's background in leather goods and accessories but I find most of his Vuitton clothes to be loaded with a lot of 'gimmick-y' branding details that his better work at Balenciaga never did: An oversized high-polish zipper here, some metal hardware there, lots of clashing colors and print. His best collections for Balenciaga were mostly known for great cuts and construction research and while the trophy pieces of those shows were very much 'worked', they did not scream as much status as his later collections for Vuitton. Then again, with most designers going into such heavily 'branded' design today, I can only but assume the chic 'fashion intelligence' customers of yore have by now been replaced by the streetstylers and influencers of today...

It’s also a reflection of the time...From the moment he started to experiment with colors and prints in 2007, it went stronger and stronger. His Prefall and Fall 2012 were particularly loud and those were collections that really grew on me.

Back to my reflection of time comment. The early 00´s were particularly shy in terms of colors. Except maybe Galliano or Cavalli, it was quite sober...From top brands to independent designers. The influence of the late 90’s minimalism was still there and it was also the emergence of a new generation of models coming from Belgium or Russia. And for some weird reason, Berlin was quite a IT city at the time...

 

[perfect blue]

One of his top 5 best collections in my book. It's too bad I've never seen an actual video of it though.

 

[tricotineacetat]

It’s also a reflection of the time...From the moment he started to experiment with colors and prints in 2007, it went stronger and stronger. His Prefall and Fall 2012 were particularly loud and those were collections that really grew on me.

Back to my reflection of time comment. The early 00´s were particularly shy in terms of colors. Except maybe Galliano or Cavalli, it was quite sober...From top brands to independent designers. The influence of the late 90’s minimalism was still there and it was also the emergence of a new generation of models coming from Belgium or Russia. And for some weird reason, Berlin was quite a IT city at the time...

I think it's more related to a sense of discretion in design that fashion customers of the late 90ies and early 2000s prefered over loud displays of status, which was considered quite vulgar to the more arts-driven fashion customer - This probably goes hand in hand with designers like Helmut Lang, Jil Sander or Martin Margiela never developing any 'it'-handbags because that customer didn't want for other people to know how much they spent on their clothes - People with a trained eye surely recognized when a piece was made with intricate cutting and superior fabric while others would not have an idea how much such a garment cost and where it came from.

In today's social climate where the divide between the rich and the poor only but furthers, I am surprised to see this notion of a more 'quiet' and personal luxury doesn't find a larger audience and that a lot of major designers insist on blatantly labelled product. It feels offensive to display all that status at a time when a lot of people can barely survive living in major capitals of the world or pay health insurance.