The atelier is quiet in a way that fashion studios rarely are. No music. No chatter. Just the sound of hands at work, fabric moving through space, the precise language of couture being spoken in real time. Photographer Sofi Adams documents this essential silence in her series from the Balenciaga Ateliers De Couture, capturing the 55th collection not as finished product, but as lived moment. This is where Pierpaolo Piccioli’s vision becomes tactile, becomes real.
The fittings reveal what the runway cannot. A model stands in a cashmere coat, three-dimensional scans of her body having informed every seam. The internal leather carapace shifts slightly as she moves, affording both structure and an almost impossible lightness. Piccioli steps back. Christine adjusts a lapel. The collaboration between designer and craft is not hierarchical here, it is conversational. This is couture as methodology, as a manner of working that shapes not just the clothes, but the relationships within the atelier itself.
Sofi Adams’ camera witnesses the negotiation between intention and material. A feather headpiece by Philip Treacy is being refined. The collaboration dissolves the boundary between millinery and garment, yet here in the fitting, it is simply a question of how the neck receives the weight, how the eye should rest. A seamstress stitches embroidery that will carry structural load, integral to the architecture rather than applied to it. The precision is absolute. There is no margin for approximation in couture.
The roster of models reflects Piccioli’s commitment to diversity and presence. Gigi Hadid, Liu Wen, Anok Yai, Amanda Murphy, Malgosia Bela, He Cong, and dozens of others move through the atelier, each body a canvas for the three-dimensional obsession that defines this collection. Achol Ayor, Agel Akol, Aluel Keror, Aluel Makuach, Nyawurh Chuol, Rejoice Chuol, and Yar Aguer bring presence and power. Agnes Wahlström, Alaina Rae, Alva Claire, Annemary Aderibigbe, Apolline Rocco Fohrer, Athiec Geng, Awar Odhiang, Betsy Gaghan, Caitlin Soetendal, Canlan Wang, Elodie Guipaud, Esme Cornelius, Evelyn Effrim, Fatou Kebbeh, FeiFei Sun, Frauke Nijs, Hejia Li, Ivy Stewart, Jacqui Hooper, Karolin Wolter, Kris Krystal, Lauren Huyskens, Lina Zhang, Lucia Richardson, Malin Rudnick, Marylore Heck, Mona Tougaard, Noor Khan, Penelope Ternes, Saar Mansvelt Beck, Sarah Isaksen, Sascha Rajasalu, Selena Forrest, Sen Samysheva, Valerie Margareta, Valery Sergeeva, and Xinyue Guo inhabit the silhouettes with precision and grace.
The backstage images speak to Piccioli’s philosophy directly. Before the Paris Fashion Week presentation, Balenciaga posted only studio documentation. Three images. The hands of Tidjane, Christine, and Suzy shaping the collection. It was a statement: couture is made by the people who live it. Not by the machinery of promotion, not by the celebrity of the moment, but by commitment and time and love in the atelier.
The creative team behind the collection reflects the same precision. Fashion Editor and Stylist Joe McKenna orchestrates the presentation of each silhouette. Hair Stylist Guido Palau shapes the frame around the face, understanding that couture exists in three dimensions. Makeup Artist Pat McGrath applies her craft with the same rigor that the seamstresses bring to embroidery, every detail integral rather than decorative. Casting Directors Alejandra Perez, Evagria Sergeeva, and Piergiorgio Del Moro assembled a group of models whose presence and bodies honor Piccioli’s vision of the form.
Adams’ photography honors that commitment. The fittings are not moments of vanity. They are moments of problem-solving, of refinement, of the designer and the craft working in concert to achieve what Piccioli describes as “the achievement of impossibilities.” A silhouette that is simultaneously austere and exuberant. A feather that is weightless yet load-bearing. An amsilk fiber that carries the tensile strength of steel while whispering rather than shouting.
What emerges from Adams’ lens is the essence of what Cristóbal Balenciaga understood: couture as three-dimensional form, as sculpture, as a conversation between the body and the garment. Piccioli does not translate this legacy. He echoes it. And in the atelier, surrounded by the people who are couture, that echo becomes a new language entirely.
“This collection is the result of a feeling,” Piccioli said. “We worked while getting to know each other, learning to understand one another. We built our own language, full of new words and timeless ones. We searched, we tried, we remembered. This collection is the result of the work of the people in the atelier, human beings who are couture because couture is made by the people who live it.”
The backstage images are proof of that promise. Discover more in our gallery:
Backstage Photography: Sofi Adams; Fashion Editor Joe McKenna; Hair Stylist Guido Palau; Makeup Artist: Pat McGrath; Casting Directors: Alejandra Perez, Evagria Sergeeva, Piergiorgio Del Moro
