EXCERPT: BALENCIAGA PRE-FALL 2023.
...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 rag tag 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 its self 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 staving artist who after many years, begins selling his or her art at five digit figures. Even though the 1980's and early 1990's NYC art scene holds a variety of examples of that rarity from rags to riches. Demna's simulacrum of 90's artistic romanticism, is just that, a romantic inclination of an era that came and went. If Demna's homage to the 1980's and 1990's 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 art work? And why would I collect it?..."
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(A.Glass 2023)
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