It’s official: After a few days of
unconfirmed reports, Balenciaga has just sent out a press release naming Alexander Wang the new creative director of Balenciaga, replacing
Nicolas Ghesquière.
“I am deeply honored to embark on this new role for a brand and
house that I have such great admiration and respect for,” Wang said in
the release. He will be responsible for designing the women’s and men’s
ready-to-wear and accessories collections, “as well as…Balenciaga’s
image.” Nothing will change at Wang’s eponymous, independently-owned
label.
The bigwigs at Balenciaga’s parent company PPR also offered statements:
“The Balenciaga fashion house and its staff are proud to welcome
Alexander Wang, whose proven talent, modernity and individual and
cosmopolitan vision of design will naturally embrace and enrich the
unique heritage of this fashion house which will soon be one hundred
years old,” said Balenciaga President and CEO Isabelle Guichot.
“Balenciaga is an extraordinary fashion house with inexhaustible
potential and it is endowed with a priceless heritage. Alexander Wang
will use his creativity and his own research to reinterpret and
immortalize the distinctive, modern and extremely innovative style
imposed by Cristóbal Balenciaga,” PPR Chairman and CEO François-Henri
Pinault added.
So it’s really true. The decision would seem to indicate that Balenciaga is
headed in a more commercial direction–a
strong suit of Wang’s. The designer is to begin work immediately on
Balenciaga’s fall-winter 2013 women’s collection, though, according to
WWD, the format of his first show “has yet to be decided.”
“I don’t want to put him under unnecessary pressure, so we will have
to figure how we want to present. We will figure out together the pace
of next year,” Guichot told the trade. “It’s an important transition for
the brand.”
