Balenciaga to show in New York, opens new Cannes boutique
Balenciaga has a new address in Cannes, and is also set to fly to the U.S. The Parisian label, owned by the Kering luxury group, is busy with several projects this spring. Beginning on Monday April 11, Balenciaga will open a new store on the iconic Croisette in Cannes, one month before the start of the Cannes Film Festival, which will feature scores of Balenciaga-clad celebrities. The label has also announced it plans to show in New York in May.
Balenciaga has disclosed very little about the event, except that the show will be held in New York on May 21, and will be the occasion to unveil the new cruise collection for spring 2023 by creative director Demna Gvasalia. It remains to be seen whether the Simpsons, who had been enlisted for the label's previous summer collection, will be making a guest appearance at the event. The choice of New York as destination is hardly a surprise. The U.S. market is currently recording the luxury market's highest growth rates and Balenciaga is not the first label to show there this season.
Gucci, another Kering-owned label, successfully showcased its ‘Love Parade’ collection on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles last November, and also the LVMH group's two leading labels have opted to show in California. On May 12, Louis Vuitton will present the 2023 cruise collection by Nicolas Ghesquière in San Diego at the Salk Institute for biological sciences, whose premises are renowned for architect Louis Kahn’s brutalist style. A week later, on May 19, Kim Jones will unveil the Spring/Summer 2023 Dior menswear collection in Los Angeles.
In Cannes, Balenciaga has moved from number 65 to number 50 Boulevard de la Croisette, with an entirely new store concept called ‘Raw Architecture’, which was first introduced in September 2021 at the Mount Street store in London, and more recently at the New Bond Street store. The interiors “are deliberately unfinished, the surfaces intentionally raw, showing the signs of age, the history of the premises and the building's structure,” stated the label in a press release.
“Electrical cabling, pipes and the ventilation system are all part of the décor. A tiled concrete floor that mimics sidewalk slabs and walls panelled in aged concrete serve as a monochromatic backdrop for the women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, shoes, bags, accessories and eyewear collections,” added Balenciaga.
Balenciaga is also busy on the advertising front, launching a new campaign after the one released in February. Australian photographer Stef Mitchell, who captured Isabelle Huppert and Justin Bieber last season, has produced a new series of introspective portraits of various “friends of the label,” clad of course in Balenciaga’s signature items and accessories.
The new pictures will be released in stages, starting with those of techno-symphonic composer Loïk Gomez, a.k.a. BFRND, followed by those of buyer Kat Zhang. Also featured are models Marie-Agnès Diene and Tommy Blue, as well as Kim Kardashian, who had all starred in the previous campaign, sparking a social media frenzy.
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