2025 is set to be a busy year for Balenciaga. The fashion house owned by the Kering group, which named Gianfranco Gianangeli as its new CEO at the start of this year after Cédric Charbit left for Saint Laurent, is busy on a number of fronts. Balenciaga made the headlines before Christmas with a new campaign lensed by Juergen Teller, opened a spate of new stores in China and the USA, and deployed various high-tech initiatives. It is also said to be preparing the relaunch of its historic perfume Le Dix.

According to Milanese newspaper MF Fashion, in November 2024 Balenciaga filed a trademark application for the name and logo ‘Le Dix’ with France’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), in the perfumes, make-up and perfumed candles categories. Le Dix was the name of Balenciaga’s very first perfume, created in 1947 and named after the address of the label’s Parisian headquarters. When Cristóbal Balenciaga moved to Paris in 1937, he based his fashion house, which he had founded in San Sebastian, Spain, in 1917, at 10 avenue George V. The label returned to the same address a little over a year ago.

The information has not been confirmed to FashionNetwork.com by Balenciaga, but the application documents suggest the label’s strategy is to diversify into perfume. A hypothesis that is all the more plausible given that, when it set up the Kering Beauty division in 2023, the luxury group led by François-Henri Pinault said from the outset that fragrances would be the first category to be developed, positioning its brands at the top end of the market. Bottega Veneta’s first fragrance collection was launched as planned at the end of 2024.

In early 2024, Kering indicated that the next fragrance launches would involve Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen. In 2008, Balenciaga had inked a license agreement to develop a fragrance line with US group Coty, but the agreement expired without being renewed.

According to the documents consulted by MF Fashion at INPI, another application was submitted in September 2024 for the trademark of the mirrored double B logo, not only for the accessories category, but also for cosmetics and perfumes. A Balenciaga make-up line might therefore be introduced following the perfume’s relaunch.

Meanwhile, Balenciaga has opened three key stores. On December 18 2024, the label opened its first store in Austin, Texas, at local shopping mall and business centre The Domain. The 570-square-metre store showcases Balenciaga’s latest collections of men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, footwear, handbags, accessories, eyewear and jewellery. The interior décor is based on the ‘Raw Architecture’ concept developed by the house, which characterises all its stores.

On December 12 2024, Balenciaga opened a 940-square-metre store made of glass, concrete and steel in Shanghai, inside the Taikoo Hui complex on the Nanjing Road luxury shopping street. Again in China, a few days later Balenciaga reopened the entirely renovated Beijing store it operates inside the Taikoo Li Sanlitun shopping mall. The store is now Balenciaga’s largest in the country, extending over an area of 1,200 square metres on four levels. It is lit by a 13-metre-high skylight, and has a private lounge for VIP guests on the top floor.

The two new Chinese stores are offering a virtual experience to their customers, via Apple Vision Pro headsets featuring an app developed by Balenciaga, which enables users to enjoy, thanks to optimised spatial video footage, the house’s latest runway shows, and to visit virtually the haute couture ateliers at the house’s Parisian headquarters at 10 avenue George V. Following the appointment of Demna (full name Demna Gvasalia) as creative director in 2015, the house “has deployed various digital initiatives testifying to its commitment to experimentation and innovation, [initiatives] in which fashion and cutting-edge technology overlap and influence each other,” said Balenciaga last summer, when it launched its immersive new app.

Like other luxury labels, this one is cultivating its image as an innovative brand at the forefront of technology, in order to attract a younger and connected clientèle. It has deployed multiple projects in this sense since 2020, from gaming to NFTs. Last year, it notably developed a unique collection of interactive t-shirts and hoodies equipped with an NFC chip enabling wearers to listen to a special playlist and a new track exclusively composed by trip-hop group Archive. 

Balenciaga’s latest initiative is the launch of a leather case made in collaboration with Ledger, a French company specialized in digital asset management. The Balenciaga | Ledger Stax is a secure signature wallet equipped with a near-field communication (NFC) chip positioned under the embossed logo on the front of the case. The device enables users to store, buy, exchange and manage cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Finally, it was in the news last December for the launch of its latest campaign entitled ‘This Is Balenciaga’, featuring among others Romeo Beckham, German pop singer Kim Petras, and South Korean pistol shooter Kim Ye-Ji, silver medallist at the 2024 Olympics, posing on vintage furniture in the streets of Paris under the lens of Juergen Teller.