Resort is a season in which designers tend to scale back their creative vision in favor of surefire sales, but that wasn't Nicolas Ghesquière's approach for his latest Balenciaga effort. His experiments with volume—as on a series of printed and embroidered frocks with super-short tiered lampshade skirts—were more daring than anything else we've seen during the current round of shows and presentations. Ditto his chunkily woven leather sandal boots.
Still, there was plenty here that was time-tested. A pearl- and crystal-embroidered Cristobal Balenciaga Edition jacket circa 1965 "still looks right now," Ghesquière said. Remarkably, so did a long black net and velvet dot evening coat that Balenciaga originally made in 1959. Other pieces shown today, like a pantsuit in rustic, nubby linen, have no progenitor, but their very Ghesquière-ness—the slim fit of the jacket, the leg-elongating trouser—should ensure their success.
