Alexander Wang s boyish bonhomie has gone a long way in buttering up whatever naysayers there may have been following his Balenciaga appointment, but more than anything it s the designer s appetite for innovation that s getting noticed. It can t be overlooked the degree of subtle ingenuity Wang has been able to pull off—both in his eponymous New York line and for Balenciaga. His new men s Spring collection for the French house continues in this vein with its bold array of materials, shapes, silhouettes, and reinventions—the kind he s been working on in women s, many of them clever updates of the founder s signature works from nearly a century ago.
Resurrecting the Cocoon look and rendering its rounded shoulders in silk is no easy feat. Even something as (deceptively) simple as Wang s suede tee for Balenciaga, with its snap buttons, is a small marvel of engineering, as are several waterproof Mackintoshes (made so by way of internal taping up of seams), sculptural double-knit cotton tops with grosgrain trim, and jackets with laser-cut gussets in back. Same goes for paper-thin bonded lambskin shorts, a tuxedo jacket with a coated taffeta lapel, and trousers ergonomically cut from a patchwork of skins—they don t shout their artistry from the mountaintops. Colors were kept to a strict palette of naval shades, and prints were all but eschewed, a decision many major houses prefer so as to better focus on a more impressive technical prowess. Essentially, what Wang is doing is creating a men s legacy at Balenciaga where none existed before.
