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On March 7 in Paris, director Sam Levinson stepped off the HBO set and into couture: he helped stage Balenciaga’s runway show, using original footage from the forthcoming third season of Euphoria as part of the visual program. The collaboration doubled as both an artistic experiment and an early promotional push for a series returning to screens this spring.
The show at Paris Fashion Week paired Balenciaga creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli’s garments with a multi-screen installation conceived and edited by Levinson. While Piccioli handled the clothes, Levinson designed the cinematography and a series of montages — including previously unseen clips from the series — that ran across the set, printed images on some pieces and informed the soundtrack choices.
From set visits to a fashion fresco
Piccioli and Levinson first connected in 2022 and discovered a shared visual sensibility: both see costume and image as critical storytelling tools. Piccioli visited the show’s set during season-two production, an uncommon move for a designer, and the two continued to trade ideas over the following months.
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Piccioli described his aim as creating a “fresco of humanity,” a concept Levinson translated into a sequence of images exploring light and shadow — the designer’s notion of ClairObscur. Levinson says the approach mirrors his non-judgmental method of portraying characters: not to label actions as good or bad, but to reveal the forces that drive them.
The result was three distinct video segments for the show: a preshow montage made entirely from the series’ footage, a mid-show blend of models and the show’s imagery, and a finale focusing on faces and garments. The edit ran like a filmic thread through the live presentation, merging fashion and narrative cinema.
How the installation was built
Levinson described a long production arc: principal photography for season three stretched roughly from February to November, producing an enormous volume of footage — including landscape and animal shots and repeated moon imagery that informed the montage’s mood. Working with an editor, he assembled a 15–20 minute sequence that he later wove together with fresh closeups of new cast members.
In a last-minute push, Levinson and a small crew shot models in a garden outside Kering headquarters, with his wife, Ashley Levinson, operating lights, a cinematographer flown in from Berlin and only a few hours before rehearsals. Those late-night, high-pressure sessions are common to both film and runway production, he said, and fueled an intense creative sprint.
- Visual elements: multi-screen montages, stills printed on fabric, integrated soundtrack
- Role split: Piccioli—collection design; Levinson—installation and cinematography
- Production scale: months of shooting for season three; a 15–20 minute show montage
- Live crossover: models filmed into the world of the series within 24 hours of rehearsal
Why this matters now
The Balenciaga event functions on several levels: it’s an artistic crossover that blurs boundaries between television and runway presentation, and it acts as a high-visibility reintroduction for a show that’s been off-air for more than four years. By bringing serialized television imagery into a fashion context, both brands reach new audiences — luxury consumers are exposed to the show, and the series gains cultural cachet within fashion circles.
For viewers, the collaboration offers an early, curated glimpse of the new season’s tone and characters. Levinson confirmed the season jumps five years forward and that familiar faces — Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Hunter Schafer and Colman Domingo — return alongside newcomers such as Danielle Deadwyler and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. The show’s score, composed by Hans Zimmer, is described as emotionally sweeping and indebted to spaghetti Western influences.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Runway event | Balenciaga x Levinson collaboration at Paris Fashion Week (March 7) |
| Show contribution | Levinson: installation and cinematography; Piccioli: collection design |
| Preview material | Unreleased footage from Euphoria season three |
| Series return | Season three premieres April 12 (new cast members and returning leads) |
| Creative theme | Exploration of light and shadow—Piccioli’s “ClairObscur” interpreted cinematically |
Creative and commercial fallout
Levinson frames the project as a creative endeavour first — a chance to work within someone else’s artistic vision and to test storytelling across mediums — but he also acknowledges the practical payoff. The runway provided a platform to introduce new faces and narrative signposts before the show’s broadcast, potentially widening its audience and amplifying conversation ahead of release.
He says the experience changed his view of high fashion; while he’s long used costume as a tool to define characters, seeing Piccioli’s rigorous, detail-oriented process up close reshaped his appreciation for couture as its own language of character and mood. Asked whether he’ll appear at more shows, Levinson laughed that his future appearances are reserved for Piccioli.
With editing well underway — Levinson indicated several episodes are in cut — the new season is being shepherded more slowly than earlier chapters, giving the creative team extra time to refine performances and narrative arcs. The Balenciaga collaboration, then, is both a teaser and evidence of the show’s continued ambition: a television series operating at the intersection of cinema, music and fashion.
Whether the partnership sets a template for future cross-industry launches remains to be seen, but for now it has turned a Paris runway into a preview theater — and given audiences an early taste of what the next chapter of Euphoria may feel like.
