Fashion

Pierpaolo Piccioli Brings Euphoria to Balenciaga Fall 2026

BYKhaoula Ghanem

March 9, 2026

On Saturday in Paris, Pierpaolo Piccioli returned to the Balenciaga runway for his second ready-to-wear outing at the house, and if his first collection was about introducing himself to the brand’s codes, this one felt like more self-assured. Titled ClairObscur, the Fall 2026 collection leaned into the tension between darkness and light; a concept rooted in the Renaissance technique of chiaroscuro. But Piccioli translated that centuries-old artistic language into something unmistakably contemporary, shaped as much by Caravaggio as by HBO.

Because this season came with an unexpected co-star: Euphoria. The Italian designer collaborated with Sam Levinson, the creator of the cult television series, to build the world around the show. With Euphoria’s long-awaited third season arriving next month, the timing felt deliberate, but Piccioli has also been open about his genuine fascination with the series (describing himself as “obsessed”). For him, the collaboration made sense on a conceptual level. Both he and Levinson, in different mediums, are interested in the same thing: people.

Balenciaga Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear. Courtesy of Balenciaga

“I am deeply interested in people, in the narratives they carry,” Piccioli said in the show notes, describing how the series’ themes of fragility, imperfection, and emotional complexity aligned with his own creative instincts. In many ways, the collection was an attempt to translate those narratives into clothing. Or, what he called a “fresco of humanity,” rendered in fabric instead of paint.

The brand took over a venue just off the Champs-Élysées, but once inside it felt less like a runway and more like stepping into a cinematic installation. Levinson transformed the space with towering video screens showing fragments from Euphoria’s upcoming season alongside hazy California landscapes. Models walked through the environment as if passing through scenes from a film, while Rosalía’s Berghain and Divinize echoed through the room. (The Spanish superstar is also set to appear in the next season of the show, adding another subtle layer to the crossover moment.) Even the Balenciaga logo had been temporarily rewritten for the occasion. For this show, the brand adopted the same typeface used on Euphoria posters.

But if the staging flirted with Hollywood spectacle, the clothes remained grounded in Piccioli’s more poetic sensibility. The collection’s title, ClairObscur, referred to the visual contrast between shadow and illumination, the idea that form only truly emerges when light and darkness exist together.

Balenciaga Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear. Courtesy of Balenciaga

On the runway, that philosophy translated into a wardrobe built largely in black, punctuated by sudden jolts of color such as bursts of phosphorescent orange, bruised purple, and deep burgundy cutting through the darkness like flashes of emotion.

Piccioli has always been a master of volume and drapery, and here he pushed those instincts further inside Balenciaga’s architectural language. Cocoon coats hovered away from the body, sculptural gowns wrapped and twisted around the torso, and fluid draped fabrics paused mid-motion as if frozen in time. Collars and hoods framed faces like painted portraits, echoing the Renaissance references behind the collection while also emphasizing the individual presence of each model.

Balenciaga Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear. Courtesy of Balenciaga

There were also subtle gestures toward the house’s legacy of innovation. Shoes created with French heritage brand J.M. Weston twisted and folded around the foot like pieces of soft sculpture, while bags appeared shaped by movement. The HG Avenue bag in particular looking as though it had been molded by years of natural wear rather than a single design process.

Levinson described the collaboration as an attempt to explore the same existential tension that drives Euphoria. In other words, the pull between darkness and light that defines human experience. “Without the Obscur, the Clair would be flat and blinding,” Levinson explained. “And without the Clair, the Obscur would swallow everything into darkness.”

Scroll down for some of our favorite looks.

Balenciaga Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear. Courtesy of Balenciaga

Pierpaolo Piccioli Brings Euphoria to Balenciaga Fall 2026

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Pierpaolo Piccioli Brings Euphoria to Balenciaga Fall 2026

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