N. Ghesquière jealous with C. Decarnin...

Nicolas Ghesquière (Balenciaga)

Christophe Decarnin (Balmain)

...or why BALENCIAGA decided to blacklist VOGUE PARIS.

Yesterday, Carine Roitfeld, Emmanuelle Alt and all the VOGUE PARIS team have NOT been invited to the last Balenciaga show !

Balenciaga Fall 2010

Carine told WWD “We’re blacklisted,” It’s too bad, it’s a beautiful house and it’s French. I hope that it’s not forever.” 

The reason for this indelicacy would be because of jealousy between Nicolas Ghesquière and Christophe Decarnin... Or rather because of the disapproval of Balenciaga regarding the excessive support from Vogue editors to Balmain, Balenciaga competing brand.

Emmanuelle Alt

VOGUE PARIS

(The Sartorialist)

Nicolas Ghesquière owes much to Vogue Paris, though...

Balenciaga was in bad shape when the young Nicolas Ghesquière was chosen to head Balenciaga, in 1997. Collections were nice but not successful at all.

In 2001, Tom Ford tried to make the Gucci Group (PPR) more dynamic buying Balenciaga. Tom Ford is a friend of Carine Roitfeld, who became, at that time, Vogue Paris editor-in-chief. As a result, VOGUE PARIS pages were full of Balenciaga free ads !

Carine Roitfeld

VOGUE PARIS

Anna Wintour helped NG to establish in the US. There were shows in NYC to make advertisement.

Nicolas Ghesquière and Anna Wintour 

Poiret exhibition at the Costume Institute (2007)

The issue is that Carine Roitfeld and Emmanuelle Alt are close friends with Christophe Decarnin. 

The two priestesses of fashion even have the privilege to review all Decarnin collections before being officially submitted ! And then they give good feedbaks for Decarnin in return...

However, I think Christophe Decarnin promotion is a normal phenomenon : he has been chosen to lead Balmain for only four years and the brand DNA is still developing.

For my part, I didn't like the latest Balmain collections at all : huge, coarse, commercial, too much bling, lack of profundity. 

In contrast, Balenciaga ones were amazing. Ghesquière's sense of shape is inimitable.

I think Balmain maybe need some time...