Since her first runway show-performances in 1995, fashion designer Isabelle Ballu has asserted an uncompromising artistic vision. Trained at Studio Berçot and awarded the ANDAM Prize in 1998, she designed 24 collections under her own label, bringing to life surreal narratives through a thousand garments and accessories. Her silhouettes embody contrasting forces: precision and audacity, restraint and frivolity, stillness and movement. Her collections were presented in Paris for over fifteen years, staged in monumental venues—Fondation Cartier, Centre Pompidou, École des Beaux-Arts, Crazy Horse, and Cinéma Drugstore—and exhibited internationally, notably at the French Pavilion of the Hanover World Expo.
Still driven by symbolic storytelling and imagery today, she collaborates with major fashion houses. Her designs for Saint James include ready-to-wear, knitwear, leather goods, and co-signed capsule collections, all distinguished by a mastery of refined geometries and graphic lines.
Continuing her explorations on the frontier of art and fashion, today she unveils her archives and introduces PARAVENTI, Cacher-dévoiler, a series of sculptural objects that conceal as much as they reveal.
— J. Auzende
