Homer Simpson Was Made for Fashion

Behind the painstaking creation of the Balenciaga-Simpsons episode that took nearly a year to make.

Clapping, whispering, cameras snapping, questionable music: These are the sounds of a classic fashion show. Bursts of laughter? Those are less common.

Yet several were heard last Saturday night, rolling around the 19th-century Parisian theater where the great and storied house of Cristóbal Balenciaga skipped the traditional catwalk and screened a special 10-minute episode of “The Simpsons.”

It was a surprise more than a year in the making, and the result of a sometimes grueling collaboration between two exacting creative entities known for their attention to detail. So far it has been viewed more than five million times on YouTube.