December 3, 2021. Vetements. Fall 2022 (A.Glass)
Guram Gvasalia exclusive backlash against hyper consumption holds, paradoxically an attuned perspective that his brand Vetements has been toying with since its conception. As his brother Demna offers more of a social and political in-joke portrayed through an opportunity to be at the helm of Balenciaga as its creative director, the Georgian brothers, both in their subtle and blunt ways, deliver an anti-fashion ethos which is unique to their Eastern European heritage. There has been, since Vetements inception, an obvious critique from the Gvasalia brothers of social media and the dilution of creativity to which the digitized relays feeds have on creative ideas and concepts; ensuring that everyone can become an opportunist, sans the delusional affects that Instagram carries in its recopying the cult of celebrity. In which most will end up as an empty reflection of fame and glory while befalling to the voyeuristic cues of celebrity watching and its obsession.
The Gvasalia’s and more so Guram who is now the sole director of Vetements, as mentioned, keep poking at our Western mania with celebritydom via an astute rawness of Eastern European hardships, particularly what the Georgians ensured in 2008 when the county was invaded by Russia. With a cease fire that was French brokered, ended up in favor of Russian aggression over the Georgian nation, you would not be mistaken to notice that there is a slight resentfulness towards the fashion industry perceived by Guram’s direction at Vetements. Seen with his latest collection, with each model hand and faces masked, in light of Demna’s covering his face in a mock red carpet display in Paris for Balenciaga’s Spring 2022 showing. Once again, showing a not-so-subtle disdain towards our infatuation of the superficial.
Yet, does this Vetements melodrama also reveal hypocrisy from Guram? Of course it does, while offering a veiled critique of that idée fixe of famous people, by issuing a decree and that need for celebrity privacy in an all-to-see digital world, that this couturier inspired collection for Vetements Fall 2022 is an appeal to the nouveau riche offspring of some indebted Chinese property giant or that American trust fund wayward who has made an all in bet on Bitcoin. The importance of Couture in its past resonation as a rarity of its finery is something that both Guram and Demna would like to see dismantled as a not an exclusive benchmark of fashion design, replacing it with their pageant inspired styles aimed towards the digital so-called self made billionaires and those thousands of ‘blue ticked’ Instagram “celebrities” to which Guram offered as a sought-after backdrop for his newest collection, that, depending on how one views Guram’s sentiment, unfortunately or not portrays the Vetements paradox in all of its contradiction.
There is no doubting the exceptional quality of the Vetements brand, with its tailored looks, fine wools and cottons that have all been merged to create Guram’s modernist fusion of street wear styling. Combining both Ready-to-Wear and Menswear as lookbook combinations, with the last three seasons, including Spring 2022 are now averaging over 90 pieces. The collections are mammoth in the amount of styles on display, admittedly there is the combining of RTW and men’s styles, however it is unsure why Guram has landed such vast arrays in short time frames between seasons. It feels, despite the exclusivity of the Vetements business model, that this inundation of styles may actually have the reverse effect on the brand name, by invoking periodic saturation of clothes, may dilute Vetements antifashion template.
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A.Glass 2021
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