What is the difference between fashion and style? It's a question Demna asked herself while she was designing Balenciaga's fall collection, one that she stayed true to her hardcore, DIY leanings, but with less angst and more wry humor, even playfulness.
There she was, in the beaded, animal-print dress that opened the show, the model snapping gum without bothering to straighten her posture or remove the label from her sleeve as she walked through a tunnel of video monitors broadcasting idyllic landscapes: mountains, deserts, forests and icebergs.
As marketing and merchandising departments gain more influence at Europe's big houses (producing collections dedicated to a color, a certain flower, or some obvious trend like sheer or denim), Demna is keen to point out that it takes more an idea to create a compelling show. . So she placed a full-page typewritten inventory of his inventions on every seat.
Many of them were very good, original and often ingenious: long dresses made from a succession of hoodies or T-shirts; trench coats, shirts and blazers that can be hung around the neck and used as an apron, an idea that also occurred to Victoria Beckham; trousers slung over the shoulders and studded on loose blouses, and loose, wrinkled, unpadded men's tailoring, as languid as a silk bathrobe. Large shoulder pads were reserved for the opening dresses inspired by founder Cristóbal Balenciaga's “hip-aulette” constructions.
Clever accessories included hats you can put over your eyes and still see; a rugged motocross glove repurposed as a zippered evening bag and sock boots with built-in laces.
“I used this collection as a platform for creative expression, really focusing and highlighting my personal style,” Demna said in a phone interview the night before the show.
A eureka moment came one morning when he was walking to work in Paris dressed in a pavement-killing coat and baggy, ratty jogging pants paired with the elongated, pointy dress shoes he had debuted at his Balenciaga couture show in July. past. Two young men stopped him and asked if they could take a photo of his look, without knowing that he was the creative director of Balenciaga or bothering to include his face in the snapshot.
At that moment he realized that he was not only making collections, designing products and questioning the fashion system, but also creating a style.
“I've been working on this aesthetic for almost 10 years. And it's out of my hands. Because there are people who dress on the street and look like they are wearing Balenciaga, but that is not the case. But the way they wear their clothes, the way they style them, the way the proportions are, it's this Demna style.”
This show will be remembered for taking a step back from the extremely oversized silhouettes and for the stunning set design. Tranquil pastoral scenes gave way to hectic urban life, and then a barrage of TikTok bombast and AI oddities that eventually dissolved into static.
“There is a beauty in reality that we often forget to notice because of the time we spend in front of screens,” Demna said. “This overload of content is something that I consider quite dangerous. I wanted to create this juxtaposition between the overload of content. And the idea that we can't focus on the things that really matter.”
He let at least one blatant marketing message sneak into the collection: a ribbed knit that read “Keep calm and wear this Balenciaga sweater.”
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