Balenciaga Spring/Summer 2012

Matthew Schneier review

Nicolas Ghesquière has spent seasons making sportswear sportier and pushing ever farther into menswear's future. For Spring, he threw on the brakes, temporally and conceptually: He reintroduced the Balenciaga suit. It can't surprise any label fans that he can cut a very good one. These were two-button jobs, slim in the waist, through the arm, and down the leg, in wool-mohair blends. They were shown, like almost every look, with white turtlenecks as layering pieces for a slightly sixties spin.


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Balmain Spring/Summer 2012 | The First Collection Of Olivier Rousteing

Matthew Schneier review

The house of Balmain is in new hands, but fans of Christophe Decarnin's moto-roué look won't be disappointed by the first collection from his former assistant Olivier Rousteing. Whether Rousteing stages a farther departure from his boss' example in women's remains to be seen, but for menswear, he hewed close. Trim tux jackets (slightly longer than usual), paneled biker jeans, and leather jackets will always have a place here. New this season is a range of pieces in pastel: tees, scarves, and even those biker jeans now come in ice cream colors (lemon, mint, and orange), mottled to look sun-bleached. Also new: swimwear, printed denim (in an abstract feather pattern that will also figure in the women's Resort collection), and a boxy new jacket shape, shorter and shorn of its lapels.

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