Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2026

Four months after his debut women’s show for Balenciaga, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s larger agenda for the house recently vacated by Demna is now readable in extended form. Against the backdrop of a posh notional home gym, and out on the street in Paris, here it is: “Combining tech-wear with couture is key to this collection” he said. “Both for women and men.” All the creative directors who’ve recently leapt into the driving seats of juggernaut luxury fashion brands have the tricky task of deciding at what speed to move ahead without leaving existing customers in the dust. “I don’t believe streetwear is dead,” Piccioli declares. He’s just seeing the canon of the hoodie and the giant trainer a bit differently from Demna, who made Balenciaga the home of them. “I feel Balenciaga is about the actuality of modern life. From the beginning, I’ve said I want to put the human—the body—at the center of the project, but I’ve done it in a new way here. Because Balenciaga DNA, to me, is about innovation.”