Paris Fashion Week: Alexander Wang’s impressive debut at Balenciaga for Fall 2013

See the Balenciaga Fall 2013 collection photos »

I’ll be the first to admit: I did not see this coming. Alexander Wang debuted his first full collection as creative director at Balenciaga earlier today in Paris, and it’s inspiring. When the French house announced Wang as Nicolas Ghesquière’s replacement late last year, it was thought by many (myself included) that Wang did not have the chops to follow such a downright titan. While Wang is credited with elevating the importance of streetwear to virtually claiming the style of the aughts, there is almost a century of history to compete with at Balenciaga, of which, Ghesquière redefined so well, so consistently.

Ghesquière is a lot to compete with, but today’s succinct Fall 2013 debut seems to say that Wang isn’t trying to compete at all. He’s taking Balenciaga way back, with many powerful tributes to the signatures Cristóbal Balenciaga created with the label’s inception. “I’m going back to the roots, identifying the codes of the house, and translating them into a functioning, full wardrobe,” Wang told Style.com at a preview yesterday. Those codes include the cocoon shape—he redefined it as a cropped fox fur-trimmed jacket and a rounded floor-length dress—and a taste for inverted volume, which was done as a full-bottomed jacket, a rounded bodice top and strong petal skirts. Where the Wang modernity shone through, albeit softy, was with the camouflage-meets-marble style intarsias that were woven through boxy fox fur jackets and molded vests and the painted-over knits, which were the rawest parts of the collection. The barely-there black heels were representative of Wang’s penchant for the slick streetwalker aesthetic, too.

Down to his reportedly brisk bow, Alexander Wang’s Balenciaga Fall 2013 debut at was a quiet one. But if it’s anywhere near as successful as namesake collections are, I expect the volume (as well as Wang’s personal brand of cool girl surround sound) to be turned up pretty soon.

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