The list of what the 30-year-old designer Alexander Wang does not look like is long.

He does not look, at first glance, like a symbolic figure. He does not look like someone who could change the prevailing wisdom of his industry. He does not look like the boss of a storied Parisian atelier. He does not look like a facile juggler of brands, people and responsibilities. He does not look like a lightning rod. And he does not look like a Ping-Pong ball, although he claims to occasionally identify with the concept.

What he does look like is a chirpy, black-clad club kid with a messy ponytail. But if fashion teaches us anything, it is that appearances can be deceiving. Because Mr. Wang is all of the above.

In 2012, five years after inaugurating his eponymous brand and becoming a darling of the New York contemporary fashion scene, Mr. Wang shocked the fashion world when he was also named the creative director of Balenciaga, becoming not only the first American designer in over a decade to run a heritage French name, but the first designer since the recession to attempt to run two houses — and the first since John Galliano, the artistic director of Christian Dior, blamed his 2011 drug-and-alcohol-fueled implosion on the pressures of running both Dior and his own brand.

Now Mr. Wang spends his time flying between Paris and New York; a TriBeCa apartment and a five-star hotel in the 16th Arrondissement of Paris; his home country and a country where he does not understand the language; the worlds of a family owned independent company and the world of a giant conglomerate (Balenciaga is owned by Kering, the French luxury group that also owns Saint Laurent, Gucci and Alexander McQueen, among other brands). And in doing so, he has become the poster boy for a renewed debate in the fashion world.