Creative Director, Demna Gvasalia, constructs a set of fire and water for his desirable clothes.
The water was rising, up, up, splashing over boots and wetting the hems of hefty coats.
© @SuzyMenkesVogue
As if there were not enough rain already falling from the Paris skies, the Balenciaga show furthered the inclement weather.
© @SuzyMenkesVogue
Overhead, the roof appeared as if blazing with fire: a digitally-enhanced, moving red ceiling apparently burning out of control.
Welcome to Balenciaga, which once again occupied a huge building on the outskirts of Paris, where Creative Director, Demna Gvasalia, was showing his Autumn/Winter 2020 collection.
© @SuzyMenkesVogue
Welcome to Balenciaga, which once again occupied a huge building on the outskirts of Paris, where Creative Director, Demna Gvasalia, was showing his Autumn/Winter 2020 collection.
Like all his Balenciaga work it was powerful, exciting, sometimes overwhelming in its boldness of statement – not just the mighty coats, but also the Pagoda-shaped shoulders on women’s dresses. (A pair of shoulders in spiky metal was the male version.)
© @SuzyMenkesVogue
The show-notes spoke of ‘austerity’ – referring to clerical-like clothing – although the designer also talked about “structures inherently associated with desire”. These could be found everywhere – from a female body-curved trouser suit with miniature checks to an undulating flower-patterned look, without the coat-hanger shoulders.
The designer’s achievements and the breadth of his invention are remarkable.
Everything was original or unexpected: long, dark, dresses vaguely suggesting a mediaeval nunnery, and sports clothes with reference to an imaginary ‘Balenciaga Football Club’.
Fabrics seemed to stretch – literally – from body-conscious garments to materials that fell gently, like the water below.
The evening dresses that sloshed through the water were apparently ‘all-inclusive’ – meaning that gloves, shoes and leggings were all attached to the main garment.
In both its imagination and creativity, the show was stellar.
Yet there was a nagging question about how Demna’s genuine concern for Mother Earth could be reconciled with the 100-plus outfits on the runway (not to mention how the water on the floor could be drained without wastage.)
Maybe these things had been thought through by the Kering luxury group, which is sensitive to such issues.
© @SuzyMenkesVogue
But the fact remains that creative people, however conscious of current issues, are obliged to produce high-quality, expensive clothing.
Perhaps Demna should opt for a ‘less is more’ approach – and reduce Balenciaga’s carbon footprint by diminishing the output of his collection by two thirds.
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