Balenciaga. Pre-fall 2023

(Images: Balenciaga 2023)

If one was to study Demna Gvasalia's modification of Balenciaga after he left his own brand Vetements in 2015, it would be generally acknowledged in the fashion world that Demna and his brother Guram, who is still producing under the Vetements brand name, have commercially redefined their so-called anti-fashion ethos as a marketable concept.  The Gvasalia's are not what could be considered Avant-garde designers or purveyors of the risqué, rather they portray a fusion of fine tailoring with degrees of shock value as a creative insert into the fashion world.  Which, as we all now now reached a crescendo with Demna's disastrous Adidas ad campaign and 2022 look book.  If you are interested, I summarized the whole incident, followed by my review of Demna's Balenciaga Fall 2023 runway show for Paris Fashion Week.  

I have been reviewing Demna's Balenciaga shows since his debut in 2015 after taking over the reigns of the iconic brand name from Alexander Wang.  Eight years later, Demna's reworking of Balenciaga as assured that the market place, to which Balenciaga sells the most, that being China, has been maintained.  Thus, Demna knows very well that the East, more so the youth of Shanghai and Beijing have an obsession, as does the West of celebritydom, and that feigned instant connection of sharing the same space with a celebrity via social media.  Or, be it the delusion that one could emulate fame, simply by developing a mirrored presence on those 24/7 digital relays.  So, it is not surprising that Demna has ensembled an array of actual celebrities to represent his version of Balenciaga.  And of course there is the occasional misfire, so far that would be known as the anti-Semitic and Twitter obsessed 'Ye', formally known as Kanye West.  Who, for the most part, with his Yeezy x Adidas collaboration, had very much invested into Balenciaga's collaborative framework.  Inspired by Demna's 1990's esque streetwear trends of limited sneaker ranges and alternating established brand name styles.  Has all but fallen into a heap, when the mega conglomerate Adidas pulling the plug in relation to Ye's anti Jewish rhetoric.  This is the peril of relying on a mix bag of celebrities to sell a product.  And it reminds me, in its similarity, of the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, who had also used a plethora of celebrities to sell their 'coins' via Twitter and other social media outlets.  Only to be frantically deleting their tweets after the crypto Ponzi scheme was investigated for fraud by the FBI.

Demna's Fall 2023 collection has attempted to bring Balenciaga back to a rawer from, which as noted in my review of his return to the runway after the controversy, maybe a reset of sorts.  And the Georgian designer does work best when he simplifies the brand with cleverly detailed tweaks, which in turn creates an interest for the Demna Balenciaga fanbase.  There is no mistaking the Eastern European charm that Demna brings to Balenciaga ala his Vetements imprint, be it that 1990's rave scene of Poland, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia, which in all of its irony could never afford Western street/sportswear brand names, but was, before China, creating en masse imitations and knock offs of Adidas footwear and jackets.  When I see this reflection of his Eastern European roots from Demna's Balenciaga, it does create a redemption of interest for me.  Of course, this has been underlying to most of his runaway shows and lookbooks, more so his ragtag team of Balenciaga models, which do indeed look like they've stepped out of the underworld of some Eastern European city.

Demna, is also very adept at breaking down glamour, even though, as mentioned I would not deem him as a Avant-garde designer, there is however under the luxury banner a veiled protest of indulgence and excess.  This in its paradoxical element, is the dilemma that an artist faces under the possibility of fame and wealth.  Which is always at the expense of creativity.  One does not create art to become rich, yet the Universe may align itself in your favor, and this occurs only once in a lifetime.  Where you may find yourself at the center of attention.  Demna's alignment gave him the opportunity to destroy aspects of clothing as an artistic prose, more so his Balenciaga sneakers, with the destroyed look from wear and tear to an extreme destruction of a shoe, to which they have been priced at $2000 (USD).  Demna's artistic backlash of fashion, is not in reflection of the ludicrousness of that once starving artist who after many years, begins selling his or her art at Five digit figures.  Even though the 1980s and early 1990s NYC art scene holds a variety of examples of that rarity from 'rags to riches'.  Demna's simulacrum of 90s artistic romanticism, is just that, a romantic inclination of an era that came and went.  If Demna's homage to the 1980s and 1990s is portrayed as an overpriced destroyed sneaker, it would be Kering, the holding company for Balenciaga that appears so far to be writing blank cheques for Demna's artfulness of the Balenciaga brand name.  So the questions have to be asked.  Is Demna's clothing for Balenciaga considered artwork?  And why would I collect it?

On April 17th 2023, the German urban designer studio 'Sub' was commissioned by Kering, under the guidance of Demna to design a Balenciaga store in Hamburg, Germany, to which the Pre-fall 2023 lookbook appears to have been photographed.  A stripped back and raw space, that is not stylized Brutalism in its design but rather an impression of decayed urbanism as in a worn looking underground carpark and a weather beaten factory space, which includes curtains made to look water damaged.  Demna's Balenciaga in its overall concept holds an attractive absurdism, that as a viewer one may look through the hype and see an obvious duplication of artistic concepts.  A luxury brand infusing itself with decay and deconstruction, where if one wishes could take and rework themselves without buying into the Balenciaga product.

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(A.Glass 2023)