When Pierpaolo Piccioli landed in Paris to start working as Balenciaga’s new creative director last June, he went straight from the airport to the Balenciaga archive near Bourget, to which he would devote a total of three days, eager to inspect dresses that he had only ever seen in photos.

He would spend the next month working at Balenciaga headquarters, overlapping with the tenure of Demna, who would stage his final couture show on July 9 before taking the creative lead of sister house Gucci in Italy.

“So we had been sharing all the teams, all the spaces, and that was interesting, too,” he said. “To have two creative directors sharing the same house for one month, you learn the idea of respect, of tolerance, of sharing, which I think is important for life, not only for fashion.”

Those gestures say much about Piccioli, a thoughtful, driven and deeply humanist designer who was keen to know more about those who lead the house before them, to honor their contributions — and to get to the crux of how he would put his own stamp on Balenciaga.

From his deep dive into the archive, the Italian designer quickly distilled the essence of the Paris house, its legacy of disruption and the “culture of couture” forged by founder Cristóbal Balenciaga.

He was enthralled to discover how the legendary couturier translated very severe and austere lines into light and supple garments, meticulously choosing the right fabrics and putting air between them and the wearer.

“I understood that all his work was based on the idea of the body, starting from the body, sometimes going very far from the body, but always with the body at the center of his work,” Piccioli related during an interview at Balenciaga’s offices on the Rue de Sèvres, where his debut show is scheduled for Saturday night. “So I want to apply that method to my way of working on Balenciaga, putting humanity at the center of the research of fashion, and making it relevant for today.

“I want to get into reality through silhouette and fabrics. I didn’t want to be nostalgic. For me, it was important to be relevant for today, silhouettes that could be interesting today, but also wearable today… To make the ordinary very extraordinary.”

Even before he landed in Paris — his appointment was revealed last May — Piccioli had traveled to the founder’s birthplace and visited the Museo Cristóbal Balenciaga in Getaria, Spain.

There he was flabbergasted to discover video footage of a woman wearing a dark Balenciaga sack dress on the streets of Paris in the ’50s, encountering curiosity and visible scorn.

Piccioli saw only innovation and liberation.

“Seeing the reaction of people made me understand how relevant, how disruptive and how kind his work was, freeing women from the weight” of their clothes, he said, noting that Dior’s original New Look weighed roughly nine pounds, versus about one or two for the sack dress.

For the interview, Piccioli was dressed in black layers, his outfit sparked by a white and red pair of Triple S sneakers, size 42, which he purchased when Balenciaga first released them in 2017. The hefty shoes were emblematic of the brand’s renown within streetwear circles, prized for its oversize outerwear, slogan knits and distressed jeans.

Balenciaga has flirted with a variety of fashion directions under its previous creative directors, which also have included Josephus Thimister, Alexander Wang and Nicolas Ghesquière, who leaned into an experimental and at times futuristic approach that catapulted the house back into fashion’s big leagues.

Before parting ways with Valentino in March 2024, Piccioli had spent most of his career at the Roman house and sharing the creative director role jointly with Maria Grazia Chiuri from 2008 until 2016, when he took the lead. He started in fashion with a 10-year stint at Fendi, also working there alongside Chiuri.

Piccioli has been teasing his new vision for Balenciaga in a campaign that features his tattooed forearms writing with a brush and a pot of ink; a 1967 wedding ensemble by the founding Spanish designer that was also the first picture Piccioli ever uploaded on his personal Instagram page, and Roni Horn portraits of Isabelle Huppert circa 2005-2006, without makeup or red carpet attire.

“In her humanity, not as celebrity,” Piccioli clarified.

There’s also a black-and-white image of Lucio Fontana about to slice a canvas. “That act was very meaningful, because he was creating a new world, a new possibility, and it was radical, but very spontaneous and instinctive,” the designer said.

As a foil to the nearly sci-fi sleekness of the wedding ensemble with its Darth Vader-esque hat, Piccioli also showcases the founder’s famous rose dress, memorable for its face-framing doughnut of scrunched fabric.

“In that tension lies the essence of Cristóbal, maximalism versus minimalism — both as deliberate and spontaneous gestures.”

In a wide-ranging conversation with WWD, the designer elaborated on his archive trawl, his initial intentions and his ambitions for Balenciaga:

WWD: Should we be surprised to find out you like Balenciaga sneakers?

Pierpaolo Piccioli: I love what has been done here. It’s not respectful, and not good for the house to deny what has been done before. I feel that a work in continuity and transformation makes the house richer, showing new sides, new aspects, new angles, new points of view.

WWD: Please tell us more of of your impressions after visiting the archive.

P.P.: As a designer, we all know the work of Cristóbal Balenciaga from afar — the volumes, the proportions. But when you see them up close, you really understand how many people have been inspired by Cristóbal. Those shapes were coming from from a very architectural point of view.

WWD: How did you start after gathering all those impressions?

P.P.: For me, researching fabrics was very important, and particularly the silk gazar used by Cristóbal, who developed a double-yarn version which allowed a more rigid structure but without any extra weight, so this allowed him to create his architectural silhouettes.

I decided to create fabrics with this idea in mind, but not only silk gazar. This collection is not at all an homage to Cristóbal. It’s my point of view, but I wanted to work on fabrics with the same kind of approach, with a tension between lightness and structure. So I created cotton gazar and wool gazar that could be more relevant for daily wear and life today.

It took time to arrive at the simple concept of the structure and the lightness, the silhouette and the air.

WWD: And what was your main takeaway from your exploration of the founder’s birthplace?

P.P.: I feel that Cristóbal was, like me, both instinctive and rational at the same time. So once I found the method that can be good for me and close to Cristóbal’s, you then have to let your instinct guide you. I want to incorporate my own sensibility and deliver in my own way. I also saw, of course, the work of Nicolas (Ghesquière) and Demna, of course.

WWD: And your impressions seeing the original clothes up close?

P.P.: The colors were sometimes almost violent. I felt from Cristóbal a deliberate gesture and intentionality of choosing one fabric, one color, one shape. And that’s my way of shaping a collection, also colors and fabric in one gesture only. I feel that some shapes have to be in one color, in one fabric. That’s the instinct.

WWD: So should we expect a colorful debut?

P.P.: Yes, there’s color and there will some prints. I found some scarves that were very interesting because there was just an intention of color, like a human brush stroke of color on a white surface. And there are prints that look like different fabrics, like tweed, but are actually printed on gazar or taffeta.

WWD: Were you given any specific directives or guidance from management?

P.P.: Not at all. I felt super free to follow my instinct and my vision about Balenciaga, and I felt trust from Gianfranco (Gianangeli), my CEO, and from all the team, too.

I believe that now more than ever, the role of a creative director can only fully flourish when it is met with genuine trust and meaningful support from the CEO. That alignment is what allows creativity to move beyond ideas and truly become impact.

In this company, I have been fortunate to find exactly that in Gianfranco. His support and confidence have not only strengthened my work, but also given me the sense of being understood and valued in what I bring. I am deeply aware of this, and sincerely grateful.

WWD: You said when you joined that you would honor all the designers that came before you. How?

P.P.: They’re part of the process. There are pieces like, say the T-shirt, one of the symbols of Demna, that I did with a very light jersey with a shape that can look like the very famous wedding dress.

Demna brought Cristóbal into the streetwear kind of reality. For me, this house is, of course, based on the idea of couture. So I want to use this idea of couture as culture to approach pieces that could be wearable, like a T-shirt, or a pair of jeans.

It’s not about elevating — I hate this word — but it comes from construction, study and research. Sometimes when you think about couture, you think only about beauty and not reality and coolness. I think coolness has something to do with reality.

WWD: What do you hope to accomplish with this first show?

P.P.: I decided to show only women’s because I felt that I had to redefine a new aesthetic for this house. Our job — and I repeat this to myself every day — is about witnessing our times through fashion and through an idea of beauty. My purpose is to define and to deliver my vision of beauty, but related to our times and to this house, so keeping the codes of the house, like disruption, creativity, adding probably humanity and couture as culture, but trying to do a reconciliation with everything that’s been done before.

WWD: Why did you decide to have your first show at Balenciaga headquarters?

P.P.: Because it’s a space that is warm. I wanted the intimacy of a salon de couture, but without the form of a salon de couture.

I like the also the idea that Demna did his retrospective exhibition here. So in a way, I’m starting where just left.

WWD: It’s not the easiest moment for business and luxury, and amid many creative changes. Does it affect you?

P.P.: Actually, I don’t feel this. We can deliver a different idea of fashion. In this game of musical chairs, we are actually people, and each of us reacts in his or her way. I’m one of the chairs, but I’m a person. I just do my own thing, and I don’t feel the pressure of being part of this game.

I still feel this job as an opportunity to express my ideas and my values through my creativity.

WWD: Under Demna, the house became known for black, oversized, and a streetwear sensibility. Should we expect any of that, or some of that, to continue?

P.P.: Demna has been disruptive, like Nicolas has been disruptive, and Cristóbal has been disruptive. Disruptiveness is part of the DNA of this house, and I like this continuing this idea of disruptiveness.

You will see a silhouette that is different from what from what you see now, but in continuity with the work of the people who have been before.

WWD: What are your ambitions for the house, creatively and culturally?

P.P.: To me Balenciaga is, and must stay, the most relevant house in terms of creativity. To me it’s the most creative, the most disruptive, the most fashion. These past years, we have been talking a lot about business. But when talking about fashion, creativity has to be the leading force and the most relevant force.