Alexander Wang, an American in Paris
At 28, he is the rising star who built a global multimillion-dollar business in less than a decade, opened stores in New York and Beijing and, last week, he was named the creative director of Balenciaga.
“It was a coup for Alex, and a coup for American fashion,” said Diane von Furstenberg. But, she added, “he’s going to need some mentoring in Paris.”
It is fitting that Wang should become the first American designer to take on a big, historic European design house since Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors and Narciso Rodriguez went to Paris in the late 1990s. Wang most perfectly represents his generation’s more accessible and business-minded approach to fashion. He also reflects the growing prominence of designers of Asian descent on the global stage.
He has created a business with estimated sales of more than $60 million by making contemporary T-shirts, sweatshirts and shorts that look remarkably like high fashion. Early in his career, when critics said he was too commercial, Wang said: “I don’t see that as a negative thing. It is something I actually enjoy.”
Some established designers see the change as symbolic of a broader watering-down of creativity in fashion. “They’re not fashion designers,” one New York designer said. “They’re fashion curators. They’re sitting at a computer copying other peoples’ ideas.”
Their fear is that PPR, the luxury group that owns Balenciaga, as well as Gucci, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta, plans to take the
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