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IT’S a
cloudless day in
Los Angeles,
and Nicolas Ghesquière is showing me around his
greenhouse. It’s actually the new Balenciaga store in
the pool blue shadow of the
Pacific
Design Center, but it could well be some otherworldly
garden. Here, in this spectacular tinted glass space on
Melrose Avenue, the color-daubed dresses and tops from
his spring collection hang like hothouse flowers.
“When
you drive by at night, it looks like the whole store is
blue and moving,” Ghesquière says, gazing out at the
cacti in front of the Space Age-meets-California Organic
building, which he designed with French artist Dominique
Gonzalez-Foerster.
For a
Parisian, he’s really got this LA thing down.
The
truth is, Ghesquière, 35, is no stranger to this city,
where he has been shooting the Balenciaga ad campaigns
for four seasons, holing up at the Bel-Air for a week at
a time and planning the store, the second Balenciaga
location in the US. He even has a list of favorite
spots: Matsuhisa,
Sunset Tower,
the Polo Lounge, Arcana bookstore in Santa Monica.
“I
understand why people live here,” he says.
It makes
sense that this student of science fiction and the most
technically innovative designer of his generation would
feel at home in the land of Schindler and Lautner, the
special-effects capital of the universe, where the lines
between faux and real are forever blurred. His work is a
fusion of
Old World couture and the eternally modernist sensibility that this
metropolis represents, of French elegance and casual
athleticism.
If
you’re wearing a flippy skirt, gladiator sandals, ankle
boots or a big, ethnic-print scarf, no matter what label
they have inside, you’re wearing them because of
Ghesquière. And come fall, when you’re piling on your
mother’s costume jewelry, you’ll have Ghesquière to
thank for that, too. Chunky crystal necklace and
bracelet sets were all over his show in Paris last
month, which was one of the best of the runway season.
His most accessible yet, with its austere black dresses
and longer hemlines, the fall collection had a mature
look that suits the times and broadens Balenciaga’s
reach.
This may
be the age of Ghesquière, but when he arrived at
Balenciaga a little more than a decade ago, the house
had little currency except for a few perfume licenses.
Spanish master Cristobal Balenciaga, revered for his
sculptural volumes, retired in 1968. The consummate
couturier, he refused to do ready-to-wear. And, for a
while, Ghesquière mostly expanded on his designs.
In 2001
he launched an “it” bag, the Lariat, with its multiple
zippers and stitched handle, that is still a retail hit.
But even that couldn’t save the brand from losing money.
Ghesquière and the head of Balenciaga’s parent company,
Gucci Group chief executive Robert Polet, charted a
course toward profitability by creating the Edition line
of reissued couture originals, and the Capsule
collection of less expensive, runway-inspired pieces,
which now forms the bulk of the business. Both are
available at the LA store, along with menswear.
Ghesquière has found his own voice, and made Balenciaga
the most trend-setting French fashion brand, and the
only fashion brand besides Prada that consistently
affects every level of the market. Now, he’s aiming to
conquer Hollywood, with a staff person to help with
celebrity requests—Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Connelly and
the Olsen twins are fans—and a VIP room that looks like
a spaceship. No doubt, the name Ghesquière—that’s
JESS-scare—will soon be on everyone’s lips.
What
goes around...
IT’S
hard to believe it’s been only six years since the
designer hit his lowest point, making headlines for
copying a 1974 collage vest by Bay Area artist Kaisik
Wong seam-for-seam. Nevermind that he was seasons ahead
of the fashion pack, presaging an interest in wearable
art that has since made Rodarte shine.
Now,
Ghesquière is himself one of the most copied designers,
with lines from the cerebral Proenza Schouler (long,
lean jackets, flippy skirts and domed hats from Fall
’06) to the cheap-chic Zara (ikat scarves and schoolboy
blazers from Fall ’07) “borrowing” from him.
Without
elaborate set pieces, he has created some of the most
dramatic fashion-as-theater runway moments in recent
history—all at the company’s tiny Left Bank show room.
Ghesquière is a master at orchestrating excitement. His
models move around the runway hurriedly, giving guests
barely enough time to take in the multicolored Lego-like
plastic shoes, C-3PO metal plate leggings and baroque
pants suits. No wonder you always leave wishing you
could see the show again.
Which is
why, when you meet him, it’s surprising to find that he
is completely disarming, the antithesis of a rock star
designer. He’s small in stature, but his crystal blue
eyes give him presence. What he enjoys most about coming
to the
US,
he says, is that women aren’t afraid to approach him.
“Here, people come up to you at Barneys and say, ‘I love
that you did this,’ or ‘I have your bag.’ I have to say
that is really nice.”
Ghesquière should be humble, because it’s not often a
designer lands the top spot at a French fashion house
without having ever attended design school, plucked out
of the back room where he was designing uniforms for a
Japanese licensing partner.
He grew
up in Loudun, France, a small town about three hours
outside of Paris, where he spent less time on his
studies than on his drawings—fashionable portraits of
Marvel comic-strip heroes the Fantastic Four and ’80s
icons such as Grace Jones. When he was 15, his father, a
golf course manager, helped him send a few sample
sketches to Agnés B, and the label took him on for a
month during the summer. “In 1987,
Paris was the cool place. It was the moment of Jean Paul
Gaultier, Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler and Azzedine
Alaïa. It was the beginning of fashion as pop culture.”
Ghesquière had barely finished high school when he
scored an internship at Gaultier in 1990, then at the
cone-bra height of his popularity. “It was about coffee
and not much drawing,” he says. “But I was looking at
everything...I learned that fashion is putting together
many, many things, crossing the universe of arts, movies
and music.”
“Fashion
used to be very subversive,” he says. “Now, it’s about
brands. If you want a name, you have to build a brand.”
The fall
season in
Paris saw the beginnings of a backlash against fashion as big
business, with a return to minimalism and nary a handbag
on the runway.
“There
are so many shows, I feel like they are just throwing
clothes on the catwalk,” Ghesquière says. “I’m not
naming names, but you think they should edit.”
Ghesquière has never shown handbags on his runway. He’s
too cool for that. But he knows that now that Balenciaga
is going global, it’s going to be even harder to stay
above the fray. “For me,” he says, “the craft is really
what’s making a difference.” |
