Get ready for Balmainia. The Balmain x H&M collection will be officially introduced in New York on Tuesday with a runway show, a performance by an unidentified (but sure to be mega) pop star, and an Instagram-candy party.
There will probably be Kardashians! There will be models! There will be the designer Olivier Rousteing! There will be tweeting and selfies and Periscoping ad infinitum. There will be a lot of sparkles.
Not that you can buy the clothes yet, of course: The collection will not be in stores or available online until Nov. 5. The lookbook, however, appeared last week, a full three weeks before sales start. The hashtag HMBalmaination debuted on social media way back in May, presumably to get the drumroll started, persuade consumers to mark their favorite items, get ready to crash the website and so on. Let no one say this is not a process guaranteed to milk the most from social media.
However, the early picture-sharing does allow us to assess what is coming, aside from some of the hysteria that comes with strobe lights and famous people. Do the results justify the hype? Is this going to be a huge hit for the brands?
Bottom line: Are the clothes any good?
There is no question that the collection resembles very closely Mr. Rousteing’s work for Balmain. Some pieces can be traced directly to their runway antecedents (the “pearl”-beaded jackets reference the fall 2012 collection; the tightly woven dresses, fall 2014; the emerald sequin looks and draped trousers, fall 2013). The beaded minidresses and big-shouldered jackets, thigh-high boots, and shiny draped skirts and trousers channel the same 1980s Dynasty-bling that is found at Balmain today.
This may work for H&M consumers, many of whom are too young to have lived through the 1980s and hence do not feel, as I tend to whenever I see this stuff on the runway: been there, so glad to have escaped with minimal embarrassing wardrobe mementos. They may love the in-your-face excess of the styles, though some of the price tags for the more elaborate pieces, which hover in the $400 to $500 range, are expensive in the H&M universe. Certainly, the collection is more immediately accessible than the Maison Martin Margiela collaboration with H&M in 2012 (that was a weird one) and more party-perfect than the Alexander Wang-H&M collaboration a year ago.
But there is a fine line between calibrated excess and trash, between kitsch and chic, and Balmain straddles it largely thanks to its Paris atelier and the work that goes into the clothes. Like them or not — and I most often do not, as anyone who has read my reviews will know — you cannot deny the intensity of the fabrication. That push-pull is part of the brand’s appeal.
That kind of handwork is, by necessity, going to be missing in the H&M collection. I have not felt the fabrics yet, and that is the part of the equation hidden by photos, but clearly the quality will be different. Mr. Rousteing, like all H&M’s collaborators before him, has talked publicly about how amazed he was by the production values, among other matters. But the comparison to be made is not necessarily between the runway and the mass market; it is between low expectations and higher achievement. Everything, as they say, is relative. The question is, relative to what?
In any case, looking through the photos, I have to say the pieces I would put on my wish list are almost all men’s wear, probably because they are the simplest.
An olive green military greatcoat with metal buttons, a navy peacoat and a cropped woven jacket all seem like good investments. Personally, I would stay away from the ruby draped charmeuse-effect miniskirt and the sequins. They are the most eye-catching — and are probably what will get the most attention Tuesday night and be in selfies everywhere — but I also think they are more costume than clothes.
And though the buzz may start now, the collection won’t go on sale in time for Halloween.
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