Sam Levinson never intended to be sitting front row at a Balenciaga fashion show, much less be intimately involved in the staging of one.
But that’s precisely what transpired on March 7, as the Euphoria creator unveiled his collaboration with Balenciaga creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli at Paris Fashion Week. Though the sartorial offerings were left to Piccioli, Levinson was tasked with designing the installation and cinematography for the show. The collaboration, which was several months in the making, played out across a sea of video screens that featured never-before-seen footage from the HBO series’ long-gestating third season, dropping April 12. The mash-up extended to the soundtrack and guest list, too, while stills from the show were printed on the collection.
Piccioli, who has grown close to the Euphoria boss and spent time on his Hollywood set, explained that he’d chosen Levinson’s work for his sophomore collection because of its “ability to convey a sense of our realities, through a prismatic representation of human fragilities and strengths.”
The star-studded event doubled as a timely PR stunt for the culture-rattling drama, which has been off the air for more than four years. Levinson was joined in Paris by his wife and producing partner, Ashley Levinson, as well as returning cast member Chloe Cherry (Faye) and new additions Danielle Deadwyler, Anna Van Patten, Priscilla Delgado, Darrell Britt-Gibson and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. The forthcoming season, which will jump five years into the future, sees Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Hunter Schafer and Colman Domingo return as well.
Freshly back in Los Angeles, Levinson hopped on a Zoom to discuss his foray into high fashion and why the forthcoming season is both deeper and more mature.
I remember seeing the red cloaked women of The Handmaid’s Tale walking Christian Siriano’s runway last year, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a collaboration of this scale. How did this idea originate?
Pierpaolo and I met back in 2022 and we very quickly realized that we shared the same kind of visual language – just the way that we saw a character and how clothing can be an expression of that character. When you’re watching a movie or a show, characters are on screen for so much longer than they’re speaking, so what are the layers to tell that story? He also has a real love of cinema and people, and we just instantly clicked. I find him to be a deeply inspirational person, and this past week filled me with so much joy and creativity.
But to answer your question, he had reached out in October of last year – we were still shooting [season three] – and he mentioned the idea of collaborating on something. As the conversations continued, it began to take shape and we started to drill down into the specifics of it. But I love the way that he thinks about things. His idea was, “I want to create a fresco of humanity,” and I was sort of overwhelmed and excited by that idea or concept, and we just continued to talk about it. And it’s interesting because he’s deeply inspired by Euphoria, but he wanted to do something that was his own interpretation of it. And so out of just pure curiosity, I wanted to see what that looked and felt like.
Did I read that he had visited the set of Euphoria season two?
I imagine you don’t invite too many people to your set, so what was that about?
I had a lot on my mind at that time, but I think we were shooting Lexi’s (Maude Apatow) play and I just remember sitting in the auditorium seats with him as we were lighting and just talking about movies that we loved and life and family — and then we just kind of continued that dialogue. And you’re right, we don’t have a ton of visitors on set, but we made an exception for Pierpaolo.
Pierpaolo has said that with this show, he wanted to “take a picture of this generation,” which is what he believes Euphoria has done—
But even more specifically, what I thought was so interesting was his concept of “ClairObscur” and how he believes that the core of Euphoria is non-judgmental, which I also believe very passionately. I try to never approach a character’s actions through a lens of good or bad; it’s just what motivates them. And so this overarching idea of do we succumb to the light or the dark is a big driving theme of the show, and I was instantly drawn to the fact that he was able to articulate that in such a strong way. But I’m sorry, I cut you off.
I was curious what you think Euphoria says about this generation?
It’s interesting, I don’t think I ever set out to take a picture of this generation as much as I was interested in individuals. I wanted to create a mosaic of these outsider characters and people who were on the fringes, who were dealing with addiction and insecurities. These were characters that I felt were rich and I could really mine, and that’s how I built it. I do think that there’s certain specific things to this generation or to this period of time that make it a bit unusual [compared to] past generations, but I didn’t approach it from an anthropological lens in that way.
Talk to me about how you translated your vision from a longform TV show to a high fashion event?
We had shot for, I don’t know, 10-and-a-half months, from I think February till November, and we shot 2.5 million feet of film. It was a pretty massive amount of footage. So, there’s quite a bit of stuff that we would film, different landscapes and animals. We had coyotes on set and snakes, cows, chickens and there was a lot of footage of those moments when the sun just sneaks behind the horizon and you’re about to be plunged into night, and I fixated on this idea that he had about “ClairObscur” — and also this thought that we would always discuss, which is that the sun is always the same, but the moon is ever changing.
So, I took a lot of that footage of the landscapes and the moon, and I started to build out this montage of sorts with a very talented editor, just creating these kinds of dissolves where one image can go into the next image. It ended up becoming this very long 15-, 20-minute montage, and then I started to incorporate some of the new faces of Euphoria into it because we’re working with some really talented people this season that the Euphoria audience doesn’t know yet: Darrell Britt-Gibson, Adewale [Akinnuoye-Agbaje], Anna Van Patten, Priscilla Delgado, Danielle Deadwyler.
Many of whom attended the show…
Yes, and I started weaving in these closeups with them, and these plot points that will become more significant as the show airs. Then we did a rehearsal on Wednesday [of last week], and Pierpaolo was sitting there and he’s like, “I absolutely love this but I wonder how we can start to merge some of the models into this world too, as if they become part of Euphoria as well.” I said, “That’s a great idea. When are the models coming by the house?” “Tonight at 7:30 p.m., they’re coming for hair and makeup.” It was like 2 p.m., and I said, “Great, let me find a cinematographer.” We ended up flying in a cinematographer from Berlin, and we had one gaffer and my wife, Ash, was operating the light and we were shooting in the garden outside of Kering till, like, three in the morning.
We ended up with the preshow montage, which is all Euphoria, the show montage, which is a blending of the two worlds, and then we did the finale montage, which is all of the faces of the different models and some of the clothes. We worked till three, four in the morning on Wednesday and Thursday and got it all ready for rehearsal on Friday. You know what’s great about fashion? They’re one of the few industries that work as hard as the film business, and it was thrilling. Plus, it’s a live event, so the pressure is just exciting.
I know you’re very accustomed to those late nights and 11th hour pivots, but how common is that in Pierpaolo’s world?
Oh, he would be up there at three in the morning holding two fabrics up, two different colors and looking at them. And I’d be like, “Why don’t you take a break, come downstairs and see what we’re doing.” He would come and watch for 10, 15 minutes, get excited and then go back up. He’s an amazing person — really, deeply creative and thoughtful. I walked away going, “This is one of the great experiences I’ve had in my life.”
When the collaboration was initially proposed, did you view it as a chance to flex a different creative muscle or simply as a creative way to reintroduce a show that’s been off the air for years?
I think it might be both, but I like that it’s a sort of left-of-center way into the culture. But I’m driven by what inspires me artistically and creatively more than I am by the marketing of something. So, I led with my heart on that one and I thought, “Well, this feels like it’s going to bring me joy.” At the same time, I think it is an interesting way to connect the two audiences of film and fashion and to start to tell stories in a larger way.
You said recently, “What has been beautiful about this experience for me is that I’m in the service of Pierpaolo’s vision,” which you called “freeing.” Did that surprise you?
I mean, it’s been a long time since I was working for someone else’s vision.
Which is precisely why I asked…
It was exhilarating. It’s also because I have so much trust in him as an artist. I think that’s why it was freeing because I believe in him and I believe in his talent and the way he sees the world and so I worked my ass off. I would sit there and before he would come in for rehearsal, I’d get a little nervous, like, “I hope he likes this.”
You also sent him early episodes of the forthcoming season, no?
Yeah. I sent him a bunch of early cuts of the show just to hear his thoughts on it. I like screening the show for people who I respect but are in a totally different field. I think that sometimes we can get insulated and so it may make sense to us, if we’re filmmakers in Hollywood, but how does it translate to someone like Pierpaolo?
Yeah. I mean, I think that sort of analysis of the way we treat characters, the non-judgmental nature of it did. Also, the music, Hans Zimmer’s score is just extremely emotional and wild this season and owes a bit of a debt to spaghetti Westerns and so just hearing his reaction kept adding fuel to the fire. But I’m still in [the edit,] I think we’re like six episodes down.
And presumably you’ll go right up to the wire again?
Yes, but I will say we’ve had more time this year than any other season. I mean, season two was tough because our main mandate was to air that January. I think the last merger was happening at that time, and we had to get it out. So, that was really tough. This time, we’ve got a little bit more freedom to sit with it and really comb through it and make sure that everything is exactly how we want it to be.
How did the writing process compare?
To be honest, I think this season went smoother than any other season. Now that we’re out of high school, the scope of the universe could be as big as I always dreamt it to be. And so, yeah, I felt a real sense of freedom, I think, in writing it. And I also think the show’s matured in a very interesting way that I’m excited for people to see. And I’m not saying “matured” in the boring way. It’s still very exciting.
I’ve seen enough of your work to know boring is not going to be an apt descriptor…
But I think it’s deeper, and I think the performances are really astonishing. I’ve been working with the same crew since season one. I think it’s like, 90 percent of our crew is the same. And so I’m really proud of the work all around — from the hair, the makeup, the costume design, the production design, Marcell Rév’s work as a cinematographer. It’s a pretty expansive season of television and it really allowed us to dig deeper into these characters. I love talking about Euphoria and I’m really proud of it, but I also want to stay focused on this Balenciaga thing.
Fair enough. How would you have described your relationship to fashion prior to this experience, and how has it changed?
Well, I love fashion in the sense that I always imagine it when I’m writing a character. I sit down and I think about what this character is wearing, and I want things to have a certain iconography to them, whether it’s color or design. And I’ve been blessed to work with really talented costume designers from Heidi Bivens in seasons one and two, and Natasha Newman-Thomas in season three. And so I think of it from a character perspective, always. [Sydney Sweeney’s] Cassie, specifically, jumps out at me as a character whose insecurities you can see from the moment she steps out in whatever she’s wearing. It’s like you kind of recognize everything she’s feeling just by the way she’s dressed. And so I think of it as a way to tell a deeper story – or it’s more from that perspective than from a commercial perspective or a high fashion perspective. But being up close and seeing the process of Pierpaolo and how detailed and how meticulous it is was incredibly surprising. And he also does it with a kindness and a grace, but they get down to literally the smallest details when designing this collection.
