After what felt like aeons of idle and increasingly self-important industry speculation over who would take the top jobs at Dior and Yves Saint Laurent last year, thank goodness for Balenciaga's classy alacrity in announcing designer Nicolas Ghesquiere's replacement last week.
The chosen one is New York's foremost cool kid and uptown grunge merchant Alexander Wang, who, since he first appeared on the scene in the late Noughties, has developed his label from down-at-heel to something rather more directional.
His fusion of high and low influences of civvies and something more like couture, of sci-fi and streetwear, isn't dissimilar to the aesthetic Ghesquiere brought to Balenciaga, though Wang's version has been slightly more accessible, slightly less strung out.
In the early days, Wang made the best sloppy jumper and sandblasted, distressed-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives jeans that money could buy and they cost more than you thought they would, too. He teamed them with skinny-sleeved, boxily cut suede and leather jackets for a 90s-influenced but unusually chic take on the rock-chick paradigm. "Model off-duty," Wang called it. And oh, how we tried to emulate it.
