Fashion Week 2009: Balenciaga

And now, for something completely different…Balenciaga Fall 2009 is certainly a big departure from the ultra-structured, futuristic, at times minimalist collections we’ve seen from Nicolas Ghesquière over the past couple of years. There’s nothing space-aged about these strongly Parisian clothes, and that only serves to prove what a versatile designer Ghesquière is and will continue to become. Anyone that can do suits so structured that just looking at them improves my posture and silk dresses so languid and airy that I want to laze around all day in them is worth whatever amount of money the Balenciaga’s parent company is paying him. A one-trick pony, he is obviously not.

This collection makes me want to move to Paris, find a tiny apartment on the Left Bank, and pretend that I’m as cool as the people that design and wear this stuff. I’m obviously not, and I don’t speak a lick of French, but a girl can dream and that’s exactly what these clothes make me do. There’s an outfit for every Parisian occasion here – sparkly fitted tops with beautifully draped silk skirts and pants, pretty suits with wrapped waists, velvet coat dresses with liquid silk sashes, and airily draped printed dresses of lightweight sheer fabric. There’s the occasional pair of regular pants, but there are too many beautiful things presented to think much about something so banal as a pair of menswear trousers. The collection also reminds me of the 1940s, but in a completely different way than the Prada war collection did – these are the clothes of movie stars that made escapist films about romance and frivolity, not hard-hitting World War II epics.