Alexander Wang built his aesthetic on the street; Balenciaga is a European couture house. Wang s first couple of years at the French label have been a dialogue, sometimes difficult, between his natural instincts and those of the atelier, but he s in the groove now. Chalk it up to the commercial imperative of the Pre-Fall season or the simple fact that he s been at the brand for two full fashion cycles, but there was an appealing forthrightness to the clothes presented at the company s Left Bank offices today. They looked polished without sacrificing much of their hip factor, and they weren t trying too hard. They were, in a word, wearable, starting with a five-piece capsule—bomber, trench, Perfecto, etc.—in sheared mink.
That said, the clothes weren t without special details, either. Jackets and other tailored separates featured "spray paint" jacquards, as if they d been tagged by a graffiti star (that s one way to give a suit some streetwise edge), and a pair of sleeveless bias-cut dresses came with unexpected embellishments: squiggle flocking in one case, and a row of brass buttons marching up the side seam in another. Those brass buttons were a recurring motif, and their military connotation gave pieces on which they appeared the zing of essentials. Creating desire, of course, doesn t all come down to need. A rhinestone brooch in the shape of a cursive B was superfluous in the most fabulous way.
