Demna Balenciaga
Demna is arguably his generation’s most influential designer. At the helm of Balenciaga since 2015— where, in 2021, he reintroduced couture after a half-century hiatus—he has recast fashion in his image, mixing flights of sartorial fancy with funhouse-mirror versions of tailoring and streetwear that imply a social commentary. Both the latter were on display at Balenciaga’s recent resort show at the New York Stock Exchange; the tailoring a selection of archetypal Demna silhouettes-vastly proportioned, drop-shoulder suits and overcoats— and the streetwear riffing on Adidas’s iconic three- stripe. Mounted in March, as Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine, the house’s autumn/winter ’22 show had opened with the Georgian Demna reading a poem in Ukrainian; this time, crypto bubbles popped and markets began a precipitous slide. “We live in a terrifying world,” said Demna. “I think fashion ought to reflect the world.” MS
All clothing and accessories, Balenciaga
Set design, Julia Wagner; production, Rosco Production.
There was a moment, midway through the Balenciaga show at the New York Stock Exchange in May, when the venue’s countless stockticker displays began to freak out, screens flashing and pixelating in time with the techno soundtrack as latex-masked models clad in satirically large business suits stomped by, never breaking stride. “Aha,” I thought, “yes, truly we are living in the extended-dance- remix era of late capitalism.” Everything’s breaking down—global pandemic, culture war, actual war, climate crisis, inflation, what even is crypto, anyway?—but the song keeps playing on its endless loop, and so we keep dancing to its beat.
At its best, this is what fashion does: it shows us . Through the lens of a collection, we see a stylised snapshot of our time—its obsessions, its dreams, its anxieties, its strategies for making sense of the world—and,
