Balenciaga.
Balenciaga’s latest campaign opens with what appears to be a perfectly ordinary Manhattan morning. Sarah Pidgeon steps onto the pavement carrying a black leather Le City bag, weaving through crowds with the kind of hurried determination New Yorkers have practically weaponised into an aesthetic. Then the illusion cracks. A voice shouts “cut,” cameras pull back and the entire scene reveals itself as a film set operating in plain sight.
Launching earlier this week, Balenciaga’s Autumn 2026 campaign, titled ‘A New York Minute: Keep Rolling,’ marks the first collaboration between newly appointed creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Celine Song and rising actor Sarah Pidgeon. Across three tightly constructed one-minute films shot entirely in Manhattan, the campaign turns the mechanics of filmmaking into part of the narrative itself, exposing the crews, cameras and interruptions usually edited out of luxury fashion imagery.
For Piccioli, who officially stepped into Balenciaga following Demna’s departure earlier this year, the campaign signals another significant tonal shift for the house. Instead of relying on the dystopian provocation or internet shock tactics that dominated previous Balenciaga campaigns, ‘A New York Minute’ leans into something far more cinematic and emotionally observant. There is still construction, performance and self-awareness, but filtered through Song’s understanding of intimacy, urban chaos and modern relationships.
Balenciaga.
Song’s fingerprints are impossible to miss. The South Korean-Canadian director became one of contemporary cinema’s most closely watched storytellers after 2023’s ‘Past Lives’ transformed a deeply personal immigration story into an Oscar-nominated cultural phenomenon.
Here, she directs Pidgeon through a series of intimately familiar New York rituals – picking up dry cleaning, navigating packed intersections, and sliding into yellow cabs at dusk. Yet, each vignette systematically betrays its own artificiality. In one meta-sequence, Pidgeon’s scene is interrupted by a second fictional production crew filming a romantic comedy on the exact same street corner, creating a brilliant, nesting doll film-within-a-film structure that keeps folding back on itself.
Even the styling reflects that collision between performance and reality. Pieces from Balenciaga’s Autumn/Winter 26 collection move fluidly between technical sportswear and sharper evening silhouettes. TechWear separates appear alongside structured outerwear, while Balenciaga’s collaboration with Manolo Blahnik continues through satin Duchesse pumps that feel intentionally overdressed. On the footwear front, the new Jet sneakers introduce a sleeker, low-profile runner silhouette that grounds the collection’s grander proportions.
Balenciaga.
The bags, however, remain the campaign’s real protagonists. Balenciaga places its three most commercially important accessories at the centre of the narrative: the Le City, Le 7 Bowling and Rodeo. All appear in black leather, though each reflects a different chapter of the house’s recent identity.
The Le City continues its unlikely second life as one of fashion’s biggest revival stories. Originally introduced during Nicolas Ghesquière’s era in the early 2000s, the slouchy motorcycle bag has fully re-entered the cultural bloodstream thanks to the ongoing Y2K obsession. Meanwhile, the Rodeo bag pushes Balenciaga towards a more refined territory under Piccioli’s direction. The Le 7 Bowling lands somewhere in between, balancing practicality with the oversized proportions we’re used to.
Balenciaga.
Outside the films themselves, the campaign continues on Instagram through the newly launched burner-style account @keeppprolling. Serving as a digital mood board, the page uploads blurry behind-the-scenes snapshots, candid production moments and grainy footage captured between takes by photographers Monaris and Zora Sicher, alongside intimate point-of-view images shot by Piccioli himself.
Piccioli makes it clear that everybody is performing constantly – whether cameras are rolling or not – and Balenciaga simply chooses to leave them in the frame this time.
Discover more here.
photography. courtesy of Monaris, Zora Sicher for Balenciaga
words. Gennaro Costanzo
