Balenciaga & me .

Is it possible for a fashion power house, such as Balenciaga, to win a girl over with just one piece, one face, one spread? In my case, the answer would be, most definitively, a yes. I remember the collections Balenciaga churned out season after season and I developed a healthy respect for them, but I was not any further appeased than that. I kept telling myself that it was an acquired taste - sort of in the way all of my Hopkins friends insisted that I drink and acquire a taste for beer in college (which I felt I could never do out of disgust). Just as the kegs at frat houses in college remained un-alluring - the sometimes overly contemporary, back-from-the-unforseen-future aesthetic of Balenciaga did not appeal to me (except for the shoes!). It wasn't until Jennifer Connelly became the face of the campaign - circa 2008 - that I began to acquire a taste for Balenciaga. I turned the pages of Vogue into something magical that immediately captivated me. The transfixing, wonderfully photographed spread was like finding the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts (thank you David Sims!). After all, isn't that why we lovers of all that is artistic spend hours creating and following blogs and thirstily perusing fashion editorials and magazines? Isn't that why we go on substantially less than frugal shopping adventures and end up spending way more than we can afford along the way? I don't know whether it was the wonderfully structured hourglass form of the piece, the effulgent effortlessness of the rustic colors or those skeletal-like over-the-knee gladiators, but I fell in love. Not to mention Jennifer - who's retro thick brows and piercing green eyes seem to shoot out like rocketships into space. And she's donned in the appropriate outfit to boot. Coincidentally, my acquired taste for Balenciaga was timed perfectly with my acquired taste for beer. The featured spread above was like having my first Blue Moon (with a freshly sliced orange). Since then, I'll take a beer and an issue of Vogue anyday, and enjoy the many tastes both have to offer.
_paige
P.S. - If you are a fashion freak like me you'd have already seen these, but check out the Balenciaga fall/winter shoes for 2010 ! Color-blocked, geometrically stagnant platform heels - love love love, genius genius genius.