This morning’s Business of Fashion newsletter opened with an intriguing headline: “Nicolas Ghesquière Finally Speaks on Why He Left Balenciaga”.
Journalist, Jonathan Wingfield, of the soon-to-be launched System magazine (the newest venture of Alexia Niedzielski and Elisabetta von Guttman–a bi-annual deep-thought review exploring the fashion industry) interviewed the former Creative Director of Balenciaga for the inaugural issue. Excerpts from that interview were published by Business of Fashion.
A few stand out quotes include reflections on how, from the beginning, there was no notion of commerciality and no production team. Ghesquière discussed how he liked to position the brand as a “little Prada” or a “little Chanel” but that he could never make the structure bigger because unlike the aforementioned houses, he felt that while he was at the top of Balenciaga, he was at the top—alone.
Ghersquière also stated that he felt like the House wanted to “steal his identity…while trying to homogenize things.” And that he felt “sucked dry”.
Considering the effort that fashion Houses make to maintain a certain image, one can only imagine the rumblings that such free-flowing statements from a former Creative Director have caused within the House—not to mention the newly-appointed Creative Director Alexander Wang’s current state of mind.
As discouraging as these statements are, with the end of an era, comes the opportunity for the beginning of a new one. Of his future, Ghesquière says, “Now I can imagine a whole new vocabulary. I’m regenerating again, and that’s very exciting because it’s a feeling I haven’t had since I was in my twenties.”
