Balenciaga is to merge men’s and women’s collection presentations.
The fashion house, founded by Cristobal Balenciaga, is now owned by French luxury conglomerate Kering and overseen by Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia.
Following in the footsteps of a number of top fashion labels, Balenciaga brand representatives announced on Tuesday that menswear and womenswear collections will be combined starting from the fall/winter 2018 season, scheduled to show at Paris Fashion Week in March (18). In addition, the label will unveil a menswear pre-collection, to debut in January.
Since taking the helm of Balenciaga from Alexander Wang in 2016, Gvasalia has relaunched the menswear category and shown three collections at Paris Fashion Week: Men’s to date.
He has also won fans for his edgy designs and use of unconventional materials, as well as his bold accessories, including his stretch-jersey thigh-high boots.
With more and more brands adopting see now, buy now business models, many have also decided to combine their collections together in one runway show for greater unification.
Burberry, Tom Ford, and Paul Smith were among the first to show men’s and women’s clothing together, while Kenzo, Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood, Bottega Veneta, Coach, Mulberry and most recently Salvatore Ferragamo, following suit.
Gvasalia, who also leads clothing company Vetements, previously spoke about his plans to shake up the traditional fashion calendar and better streamline production. Vetements now shows two collections in January and June.
„The whole industry runs so fast because we need to deliver something new to the store every two weeks so the client isn’t bored,“ he previously told Business of Fashion. „They don’t want to wait for six months, so we have the pre-collection, the pre-pre-collection, and the main collection, which nobody is buying, so it all just ends up on a sales rack.“