Christophe Decarnin transformed Balmain from a fusty old couture has-been to the hottest thing going in his 10 seasons at the brand. Since his abrupt departure from the label in 2011, he's remained out of the headlines. But maybe not for long. Rumors suggest that Decarnin and his entire Balmain-era team are ensconced at the Paris label Faith Connexion, the president of which, Alexandre Allard, was involved in Balmain's mid-aughts renaissance.
Allard and his team won't confirm the reports. Instead, they've produced a Faith Connexion manifesto. "Just like the only obligation of an artist is to be free, Fashion needs to be free," it begins. "Freed from Fall/Winter, Spring/Summer seasons, freed from multimillion-dollar shows, freed from flagship stores, and freed from star designers." Without the benefit of runway shows and all the rest, the brand has been quick to pick up retailers: Maxfield, Saks Fifth Avenue, Net-a-Porter, and Luisa Via Roma, for starters, and more coming soon.
The general ethos of Faith Connexion is Paris-meets-Bushwick. For Fall, the collection encompassed everything from double-breasted leather blazers with a sexy, off-the-shoulder cut to shredded, bleached, and otherwise mistreated jeans to tiny, little minidresses of the Balmain variety. But where Balmain was about injecting couture-level clothes with a rock-and-roll vibe, at Faith Connexion, the point is to treat your everyday kit in a couture-like manner. Shearling jackets, leather leggings, and cotton tees tagged to one-of-a-kind results by graffiti artists were among the successful examples of this process. Sequined tops as heavy as dumbbells were one of the ways it went wrong this season. Most of the time, though, the clothes remained as offhanded and cool as their streetwise starting points. The faded flannel shirts suspended from the waistbands of miniskirts or shorts, for instance, felt like something you've worn and tossed in the wash hundreds of times.
Secrets don't stay secret in this industry for long. But if the Saint Laurent revival has taught us anything, it's that you don't need a public face to be a success. Hedi Slimane doesn't do interviews and generally maintains his distance from the press, and look at what a bang-up business he's doing.
