Balmain’s Antonin Tron is Bringing Sexy Back to Menswear

Since arriving at the creative helm of Balmain one year ago, Antonin Tron has brought a slinky, sensual and cinematic glamour to the French house’s womenswear — and now he’s turning up the heat in the men’s department, too.

“I wanted something very sexy because the womenswear is also very sexy,” Tron said in an exclusive interview about his men’s debut for the pre-spring 2027 season.

He chose to unveil its “unapologetic masculinity” in tandem with the collection’s arrival in stores on Wednesday — and backed by a campaign depicting bare-chested lotharios lolling around in the hay, sometimes wearing little more than a pair of shorts and soccer shoes.

“A little bit Mapplethorpe-y, a little cruise-y” were among descriptors he threw out to describe the steamy images by photographer Matthias Vriens of Dutch magazine fame. “Punk” and “playful” were others.

To be sure, the racy campaign is bound to bring fresh attention to Balmain menswear, which currently accounts for only 20 percent of the business, and in recent years had been largely focused on sneakers, logos and T-shirts as part of the luxury streetwear craze.

While he has dedicated most of his fashion career to womenswear, at his now-paused brand Atlein and earlier in his career at Givenchy, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, the designer’s graduate collection at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Arts was dedicated to men’s evening finery.

He also spent two years designing men’s collections at Louis Vuitton alongside Paul Helbers.

Now back at it at Balmain, he acknowledged that “designing for men, at least for me, is very personal. It’s also about what you like personally and what stage you are in life.”

The strapping designer, an avid surfer, is strongly associated with casual style, flickering onto Monday’s Teams call in a plaid Stussy shirt worn over a faded blue knit.

He boasts a huge closet of lived-in-looking T-shirts from his favorite heavy metal and goth bands, valuing their patina, wash and hand as much as the artwork. His personal wardrobe also includes a lot of vintage Carhartt, cowboy boots and leather biker jackets.

He ascribed a “laid-back sexiness” to his Balmain menswear, which spans everything from business suits and velvet dinner jackets to silky, leopard-print shirts.

House founder Pierre Balmain designed his first men’s collection some 60 years ago, for the spring 1967 season, though Tron said he did not draw on the archive for his debut effort.

Instead he tapped into the same wellspring of inspiration that fed his women’s spring and pre-spring collections — California counterculture — yielding a slightly louche, ’70s feel.

Among male style icons on Tron’s mood board for his debut effort were famed ’70s surfer David Nuuhiwa, musicians Lou Reed and Andrew Eldritch, lead singer of The Sisters of Mercy, along with ’90s Hollywood breakouts Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey.

That said, the designer is adamant that Balmain’s men’s and women’s collections “work hand in hand,” reflecting one vision and the same energy.

In fact, he plied many of the same fabrics — among them jacquards and fil coupé — and considers some styles like embroidered leather jackets, lace-up trousers, gilded blazers and jeans “almost like unisex pieces.”

“I wanted the same richness and the same kind of nonchalant attitude — and a bit of a rock vibe — as the women’s,” he said of the men’s collection.

Tron noted that he uses pre-collections to explore the “cooler, more casual” side of Balmain, reserving the runway for more elaborate, couture-like fashions.

In a separate interview, Balmain chief executive officer Matteo Sgarbossa described the launch of Tron’s first menswear as part of the overall transformation of the Paris-based house, and reflective of his step-by-step approach.

Indeed, since Sgarbossa arrived at the management helm in May 2024, he has paused brand collaborations and focused on the house’s core womenswear business.

He’s made key hires in merchandising, communications, retail and client relations, along with several new zone presidents and a reinforced design studio for leather goods, also seen as a high-potential category.

“We want to do things properly,” he said, while citing an ambition to grow the men’s business to 30 to 35 percent of the total with a wider, more comprehensive offer, and a stronger fashion point of view extending from day to evening. “The goal at Balmain is simple: to become bigger. We want to do it leveraging on men as well because the brand resonates with men.”

He cited a “very positive reaction” to Tron’s first womenswear designs from boutique clients, wholesale clients and a new customers “so we are ready to move to the next step.”

Tron’s men’s designs are scheduled to land in 18 of Balmain’s 44 boutiques, assigned to ones large enough to display the breadth of the new offer.

For example, the nearly 1,000-square-foot lower level of the new gallery-like Balmain flagship at 23 Via della Spiga in Milan will showcase the expanded men’s categories.

Wholesale clients taking on the pre-spring menswear collection include Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Net-a-porter and Mytheresa, Sgarbossa noted.

The executive described a new thrust in the luxury menswear space, with customers more in tune with their wants and “expecting more from a luxury brand.”

He echoed Tron in vowing strong alignment between the men’s and women’s fashion universes that stretch back to Pierre Balmain’s men’s debut, which was “quite bold in the proposition, and very aligned in terms of aesthetics and codes with the women’s. Can you imagine?”