Alexander Wang has been at Balenciaga for just over a year now. Pre-Fall is his most confident collection to date. The reason: It married the Cristobal Balenciaga codes with 21st-century performancewear, a language Wang knows intimately from his years at his own label. "Techno couture," he s calling it.
At its most obvious, the mash-up produced a gabardine cocoon coat accented with waterproof aquazips at the cuffs borrowed from scuba diving and polyurethane patches at the shoulders lifted from uniforms. It had a sporty urgency that felt modern. Elsewhere, Wang captured the high-low attitude he was going for by cutting a "jean" jacket and mini from needle-punched wool and mohair or by pairing a real astrakhan pullover with a skirt in an astrakhan print. A black-and-white intarsia sweater that was pixelated like a computer screen looked arresting accompanied by deep green snowboarding trousers with Cristobal volumes.
The more classic part of the collection didn t gel quite as well. Since arriving at the French house, Wang has made a point of emphasizing the 360-degree nature of his designs. This season, he used simple squares, rectangles, circles, and triangles to create more complex draped shapes. With their circular construction, the winged jackets looked a bit overthought. But his experiments did yield a beauty of an evening dress. The liquid black Japanese silk satin column gown that closed the show was very nearly backless. As sexy as it was, it s hard to believe it was built on a rectangle.
