Image via @pppiccioli
Pierpaolo Piccioli is leaving Balenciaga just as his vision was taking shape. His departure brings a promising chapter to an unexpectedly early close.
When Pierpaolo Piccioli arrived at Balenciaga, there was something intriguing about the pairing. Here was a designer who had spent years making people fall in love with colour, sweeping gowns and the romance of getting dressed, taking over a house that Demna had made synonymous with oversized proportions and a provocative sense of humour. Announced in May 2025 and effective that July, his appointment offered the possibility of seeing Balenciaga through a different set of eyes. Now, that chapter is already closing. On November 5, Balenciaga confirmed Piccioli’s departure, less than a year and a half after he officially took the role. The house thanked him for his contribution to its couture heritage and said its next creative direction would be announced shortly. No reason for his departure was given. It is an abrupt ending to a partnership that still felt like it was finding its rhythm.
To understand why his arrival carried so much promise, it helps to go back to Valentino. Piccioli joined the Roman house in 1999 alongside Maria Grazia Chiuri, initially working on accessories before the pair became joint creative directors in 2008. When Chiuri left for Dior in 2016, he took the creative lead alone, developing a vision that could make an enormous couture gown feel surprisingly personal. There were extraordinary combinations of colour and, eventually, the electric Pink PP that became instantly recognisable far beyond the runway. By the time he departed Valentino in March 2024, after 25 years, he had built the kind of emotional connection with a house that takes time to create. Balenciaga offered a fascinating next step. Its founder, Cristóbal Balenciaga, had transformed fashion through shape and construction, giving Piccioli a rich history to explore through his own feeling for volume and the way fabric moves around a body. On paper, there was plenty for the two worlds to say to each other.
His first Balenciaga collection, presented in October 2025, began that conversation with a version of the founder’s famous sack dress. Sculptural shapes, draping and references to the house’s past suggested a designer looking for connections across its different eras. By his couture debut in July 2026, he was exploring that relationship further, bringing together precise construction, colour and familiar pieces such as the City bag. Seen together, those collections now feel like the opening pages of a story that will remain unfinished. For us, that is what makes this departure feel particularly sudden. A designer can introduce an idea in a single show, but it takes longer for that idea to become something people recognise, wear and make their own. Piccioli’s brief tenure leaves a sense of curiosity about where he might have taken Balenciaga with more time. As the house prepares to introduce another creative direction, we are just as interested in where he goes next. What did you make of his Balenciaga chapter?