Balenciaga. Fall 2021 Ready to Wear – Paris. (A.Glass December 10, 2020)

 

As 2020 draws to a close, it will be the year of a viral contagion that no one saw coming, which remains persistent until we all get vaccinated middle to late 2021.  Despite predictions and discussions that we were due for one, it will be the fumbled and ad hoc responses that will be analyzed in years to come on how not to handle a global pandemic.  With the full blown mess that has ensured, economically and socially, turning society upside down, may have been, speculatively, less so, if the realization, not denial, that viral outbreaks will and continue to happen.  Yet from the negatives, adjustments have occurred that can be seen as positives, as businesses look to source creative and innovative ways to maintain and develop ideas and products. 

In January this year, on the cusp of the quarantines, I wrote a review for Louis Vuitton’s Pre-Fall 2020 collection to which the creative director Nicolas Ghesquière designed a Louis Vuitton gaming “skin”, thar was all but a prelude to where fashion could be heading, away from the traditional runway.   An excerpt from my review:

 “…2020 could also have the fashion industry experiment with Virtual Reality as the concept of alternate worlds via the simulated Universes of role playing and video games. Recently creative director Nicolas Ghesquière of Louis Vuitton has designed a “skin” for the character Senna to be used in the immersive online multi-player game League of Legends, titled the ‘Prestige Skin’, this VR outfit will be available on-line from the actual gaming console from February 4th…”

Demna Gvasalia of Balenciaga fame, has taken the digital fashion landscape up an extra notch, by incorporating his whole  2021 Ready-to-Wear collection to be seen and played via an interactive virtual reality game titled “Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow.”  Gvasalia’s latest instigation is the most immersive conception to date from a fashion designer, in relation to promoting a seasonal collection that is all but removed from actual reality, instead, superimposing onto a virtual reality impression.  Interestingly the platform used is a template of the Unreal gaming engine, so the transition from gaming experience to viewing a fashion show via a science fiction themed approach, is shown as a smoothly portrayed and believable concept.  Testament to how advanced simulated realities within the gaming industry have become.  But how does this interrelate to a fashion show?  

Gvasalia is no stranger to twisting the concepts of the traditional runway, more so his choice of models which display his styles. Even under the prestige name of Balenciaga, Gvasalia’s anti-fashion ethos continues to reverberate throughout the industry, yet one can be captivated by the innovations of projecting a new collection, however it is the clothes on offer than require the scrutiny and of course the analysis despite the innovation of its exhibit.  The overall effect works well, despite the frustration of working the game from a cell phone touch pad, moving the first person character around Balaneciga’s online brutalist inspired store, will be challenging at times, particularly when trying to navigate towards the game’s conclusion, whilst at the same time studying the clothing on the models.

Regardless of what could be slight glitches in Gvasalia’s “The Age of Tomorrow”, his online gaming experience has certainty melded fashion into technology, with an escapism that only the hyper-real of digital relays could achieve.  However, there is an artistic indulgence with a online game/fashion shows that when looked at objectively, even though it does redefine what the runway will be in 2021.  The underlying premise is the removing of studio appointments and traditional retail – that a pre and post Covid-19 world,  might be the case.  Inserting in its place a virtual reality experience of creating and selling clothing via Balenciga’s extensive digital sale networks.  That in all of impressiveness, what Gvasalia has embarked on is something very few designers could afford to implement.  So, in a competitive sense Balenciaga’s game changer may have in fact cornered the market with its three dimensional lookbook, but there is no one else, sans Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière, who may offer a counter challenge to Gvasalia’s VR stage, with something even more grandeur. 

 The Fall 2021 Ready-to-Wear collection at 49 pieces is an extensive array, in its similarity to Gvasalia’s Spring 2021 showing which, once again, was void of a runway, instead set around the back streets of Paris, as a noir styled drapy affair to which Gvasalia has maintained his oversize mystique inspired looks.  Allowing the Fall styles to incorporate the Spring concepts and vis versa, Gvasalia’s latest collection clings to its darker gothic cues, whilst reverting back to his interest in setting a precedence with Balenciaga to push the prestige brand into street style designs. What ever the marketing cue, it is the spectacle that is now overshadowing the clothing on display.