Alexander Wang is proceeding with the integration of his aesthetic into the Balenciaga canon with respect, exactitude, and purpose. This fourth Wang-helmed menswear collection dutifully began with a reading of the founder's cocoon coat, its seams reduced by envelope construction, its placket neutralized, and its ovoid embrace ensured by a robust wool blend. Below were the narrow, springy wool/nylon foam trousers and protectively high, rugged-soled leather boots that featured throughout the show. The aesthetic was monkishly ascetic. High-cut double-face jackets came with a frontispiece that was applied via magnet at the collarbone; cashmere mock turtlenecks in black or white nodded to the clerical.
These were clothes that treated decoration with almost puritan suspicion, with the exception of one tri-textured lambskin. A cowled long coat was double knit to achieve the suggestion of scattered stones; a two-piece gray knit jacquard resembled a snowy mountainside under moonlight. A wool, nylon-armed sweatshirt with a body made of hand-cut meshed astrakhan was a sermon on the potential for artisanal techniques to uplift sportswear. And yet a technical nylon jacket cut by ultrasonics defied the orthodoxy that technology and luxury are mutually exclusive. Those who live in this industry often overlook the pejorative potential of the "L" word. At Balenciaga Wang is refining an iteration of luxury that treats the superfluous as sacrilege in pursuit of the pure. For some people that strictness will be off-putting, but for others it will be the key draw.
