An Audit of The Full Look in Times of Piccioli, and Growing With a Brand
What makes it a Full Look?
What Caught My Eye is a daily column about internet culture, people you should know about, business, shopping, and fashion.
Hello everyone, sorry I didn’t send yesterday’s letter. I was bombarded with Cannes-festival related emails, strategy sessions, and decided to give myself a hump day to put words to paper, pushing WCME’s run to Friday.
Pierpaolo Piccioli is back with a new appointment at Balenciaga. Ever since he showed Valentino in the Place Vendôme Salons, I’ve made a habit of walking my dog past the venue on show nights to people-watch. He drew in crowds. You had your celebrity spotters, your fashion students pleading for last-minute invites, clients taking in the crowds from the balcony, vloggers, and editors like Carine Roitfeld and Suzy Menkes slipping in and out of the salon.
Piccioli is a romantic when it comes to design, and surely the clothes will be fabulous. But what I’ll really be watching for at Balenciaga is a hit shoe—and maybe more importantly, a hit bag.
He’s done the shoes. At Valentino, he gave us the Rockstuds—an icon that’s still in the permanent collection. Now that’s a hit. The bags are a little trickier. But Balenciaga has some breathing room in that department, thanks to the Motorcycle bag. No pressure (yet)—the Motorcycle was after all an accidental triumph.
How did it happen? Here all roads lead back to Kate Moss in Paris.
wrote for Vogue in 2019, “Moss—with her grown-out pixie cut—saw the bag after a Balenciaga show and requested one from Nicolas Ghesquière himself. Execs didn’t think the bag would sell, but when Moss jumped on it, they realized its potential. Then, the bag went into production”. The rest is history.Accessories are key to a modern fashion house’s success, but Pierpaolo arrives first and foremost as a master of the dress. “It inspires me in terms of volumes, shapes, innovation,” he told The New York Times. Still, once the atelier starts cooking, we’ll be watching for the full course: the dress, the shoes, the bag—the Full Look.
WCME: Growing with a brand
When I was at Celine, one of the things that impressed me most about the House was the fact that it was born out of the war. Let’s go back to 1945. As the theater of WW2 came to a close, Céline Vipiana, launched a made-to-measure children’s shoe brand in Paris.
Over time, her clientele grew up—and the brand grew with them. Céline began catering to teenage girls, and then, with a strategic price bump, to the société debutantes of postwar Paris.
As those girls became women, the brand leaned into a bourgeois sensibility that felt right for its maturing customer base.
By the 1970s, Céline had evolved again—it’d gotten sportier, this time tapping into a new, freer movement of style. It was a brand that followed the woman through the varying stages of her life: from girlhood to adulthood. And that’s a powerful story for brands to tell.
In a future post, I’ll dive deeper into the house’s modern history—from Michael Kors’s sleek Americana, to Phoebe Philo’s era-defining minimalism, to the youthquake rebrand under Hedi Slimane. But today, I want to talk about Donni, a brand that’s doing something similar.
The Formula
The Cut recently published an article about the brand Donni.
Donni, Donni, what’s Donni? I’ve been seeing the name everywhere.
The Cut describes Donni as ‘The Cool-Mom Pants Brand’, where Martha Stewart meets The Row. What caught my attention was the easy-to-wear aspirational aesthetic channeled by the clothes, a look that says, ‘Jane Birkin, about to board a plane’.
Its Instagram, a haven for Bag-Spotters, features real women taking mirror selfies. In a quick scroll I spotted an Hermès Garden Party, an L.L.Bean Boat, A Louis Vuitton shoulder sling bag, and a Gucci Bamboo. All to say that, come for the killer bags, and stay for the pants, boxers, and shirts.
Alyssa Wasko, founder of Donni, is “laser-focused on designing soft clothes for a busy, loud, sticky life” that comes with raising children. Clothes that you don’t feel bad about throwing in the washing machine multiple times a week, and having it come out still looking good as new. The key, Wasko says, hasn’t been about feeling like her old self as she’s building a brand, but “to look and feel like her new self”.
It takes the product out of the garment, and makes it feel authentic, original. But most important, and this is why Donni caught my eye, it brings you into the story, and that my friends is history.
5 Things To Pack: The Full Look
Your daily packing list: men’s, women’s, and summer’s best style—wherever you’re headed.
The Belt Bag is all the rage in Paris. Denim has never been so in demand. The stripe shirt transcends codes. A New York Yankee is a hat to spot, and ALAÏA flats have the driver-shoe vibe that feels of the moment.
Tove Striped Cotton-Poplin Shirt, $323
Prada Buckle Leather Handbag, $6,100
MoMA NY Yankees Cap, $34
Alaia Ballet Flats, $1,350
Khaite Jeans, $640
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