The Tamesis
Tron’s research on Balmain began with a close reading of the late fashion designer’s autobiography, my years and seasons. In it, Balmain recounts the friendship he formed with Christian Dior when they were both young apprentices of Lucien Lelong. At one point they planned to start a business together—imagine how different the fashion world would be in the 20th and 21st centuries if they did—but the plan never came to fruition. Balmain beat Dior to the launch, but unlike Dior and its signature “New Look” (the theme of the 2024 AppleTV collection), Balmain’s code is less clearly defined.
Tron believes the initial impetus behind the house was glamour. “The Balmain woman, she is unapologetic, very unbourgeois, she is very bad,” he said. In his mind, you can chalk that up to connections to Hollywood. Brigitte Bardot’s sexy translucent dress god created woman? Those are Balmain’s. He also designed clothes for Sophia Loren millionaire. Off the court, he dressed the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland and Josephine Baker. Back on the continent, Air France’s first female pilot was another client – now that’s pretty awesome – and Tron would pay homage to her with his first look of the show, a sleek black leather jacket with 1940s-inspired shoulders and a chiseled waist above the hem, paired with tapered trousers, point-mesh stockings and heels. “I want everything to be dynamic,” he said, “and moving quickly.”
Tron collaborated with his friend architect Andrea Faraguna, who won the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale last year, in an exhibition setting that he describes as “very immersive, almost but not quite like an abandoned house.” “You come into an 80-year-old house and there are a lot of ghosts in it. Everyone has their own idea of what Balmain should be; you have to deal with the ghosts, not chase them away,” he said. Of course, his own hand will also be evident. “At Atlein, I always felt like I was a movie director, shooting a movie with just an iPhone, and all of a sudden, OK, this isn’t Ridley Scott, but I can do embroidery, I can do tailoring.” Rousteing focuses on prosperity, while Tron considers what he does to be “minimal opulence.” For example, he has Balmain’s signature animal prints, but his leopard-print embroidered jacket is zipped.
Accessories are more or less a new territory for Tron, and he also sees it as a growth area for Balmain, which in the 21st century is dominated by ready-to-wear rather than leather goods. “I think accessories are very cold and very hard everywhere,” he said. “I wanted something very sexy, and that’s what Balmain should be: very sexy; very luxurious, but with a real sex appeal.” He points to a soft-leather clutch modeled after his surf bag; the Balmain version isn’t waterproof, but has roll-down sides and a structure similar to dry bags used in water sports.
