Saturday night in Paris witnessed the debut of Pierpaolo Piccioli at one of fashion’s most mythical marques, Balenciaga. With Meghan Markle and Lauren Sanchez applauding front row, this was surely the most sophisticated new designer inauguration so far.

A collection that was all about the body and its rapport with clothing, in a beautiful, often whispery light, debut by Pierpaolo Piccioli for the legendary house of Balenciaga on a dank night in the French capital.
 
Piccioli clearly regards founder Cristóbal Balenciaga with awe, as a great artist who revolutionized fashion, and fabrics. Pre-show, his mood board featured images of Le Corbusier’s Colline Notre Dame du Haut church and Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man”, suggesting the forms that PPP would develop.

A first collection presented inside a church in a perfect cruciform within a former convent, which should have pleased founder Cristóbal Balenciaga, a regular Sunday mass church goer.

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The key material in this insurrection was gazar, a fabric technique that lightens and adds structure to any look. Piccioli was rightly obsessed with really digging deep into the DNA of the brand and its archive. So, he had the house manufacture special light protective body stockings live models could wear inside historic archive looks without doing any damage.
 
“Unless you actually see Cristóbal’s clothes move and turn on a live human body, I don’t think you fully comprehend them,” insisted Piccioli.
 
The result was a collection of rare elegance. Opening with faintly billowing columns, tunics and pants in organza gazar that ripped as the models walked by. But adding a dash of rock goddess chic with cocoon leather biker jackets, and a superb leather combo of truncated leather top and multifold skirt that billowed out.
 
Cristóbal was famed for using juxtaposed materials, something Pierpaolo played on in ivory sheaths trimmed with small fields of sliced white cock feathers. 

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Pre-show, the Rome-born couturier explained that he wanted to add air to his curving shapes, whether made in cotton and wool gazar, or second skin leather. He very much succeeded in the subtlest debut of the dozen so far on the four-week international calendar that ends on Tuesday.
 
Plus, he paired a new soft Bolero bag that one could fold and hold under arm.
 
Pierpaolo joined Balenciaga – a key house in French luxury group Kering – after an 18-month hiatus after leaving Valentino. He succeeded Demna, the Georgian-born designer who left to join Gucci, the largest marque in Kering.
 
Their visions for Balenciaga are very far apart. Demna, a refugee civil war in his native land, who had a dark dystopian vision of fashion, and life. 

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One of Demna’s most famous shows was set in a muddy battlefield with models dressed like battered refugees. Piccioli, by contrast, loves bright, vibrant colors. His color palette referenced the glorious colors of painters like Fontana, Rothko and Goya.
 
While his heroines were far more kicky and independent than the founder or Demna, opening the show with a remix of Sinead O’Conor singing “In This Heart”.
 
“Adding air to shapes. Making clothes that are ordinary yet extraordinary,” said Pierpaolo, explaining his goal. Staging a show of great grace, and aplomb and polish in a dark moment geopolitically and socially for the planet.
 
“In my view, putting your faith in humanity is the most radical act one can see today,” concluded Piccioli, who took an extended beaming bow amid a prolonged standing ovation.