Balenciaga. Spring 2025 - Shanghai

Demna Gvasalia's surreality that is the brand name of Balenciaga attempts to stay on track for 2024.  Although not the first time, there appears to be a fumbled seriousness that has presided over the Georgian designer's latest collection.  And it may have to do with Balenciaga's corporate owner, Kering.  For the First quarter of 2024, Chinese consumption on Kering luxury products plunged, more so Gucci which carries the expectation to bring in the mega profits for Kering.  Clearly the Chinese are tightening up their spending, Gucci sales collapsed 20% this time last year, and Kering's share price has fallen over 27%  year-on-year.  With the whole Luxury sector facing deflated prices from a Chinese slowdown.  It was no wonder that Balenciaga for Spring 2025, held the collection in Shanghai.

And under these conditions, does Demna offer any compromise to his anti fashion ethos?  Which if you have been reading my reviews of Balenciaga collections, since Demna took the reins from Alexander Wang in 2015, you would have noted his plethora of contradictions and over emphases of reselling backlash, which has been the Demna forte.  With very little irony attached.  So, in its reiteration, there is no surprise that he has attached Balenciaga to the more commercial and viable elements of Chinese consumption.  Demna's Balenciaga is now collaborating with the U.S sports brand Under Armor, which has enjoyed rising sales within China as an affordable American streetwear styles for the Chinese youth, and Alipay, the Chinese mobile payment system.  With a Alipay x Balenciaga t-shirt setting a Shanghai resident back $600 USD.  Never mine our new Cold War surrealism, and those Taiwan tensions.  And yes, ironically Under Armor is also manufactured in Taiwan for the Asian/Chinese markets.  Can international markets save us from a Full blow war in the South China Sea? And will we see Peace through trade agreements?  In all of is sardonic absurdity.  Here's hoping.

Demna's Resort 2025 collection, in light of his Resort 2023 collection held at the New York Stock Exchange, which was all an Adidas x Balenciaga affair, has allowed an extra imprint of the Under Armor insignia, that was adored on most of his latest styles.  Spared were the Couture stylizations, which are not Couture.  And as mentioned in numerous fashion reviews of the last decade, that the independent fashion designers are becoming very much extinct in these high stakes, inflated world of fashion design.   Sports conglomerates, with their mega holding companies such as Kering, who owns the Balenciaga brand name, are all but left.  

Did Demna's latest array evoke any worthwhile aspects?  Partially.  Apart from the setting, which looked akin to a dystopic backdrop with its Shanghai skyscraper laden skyline, and Blade Runner esque climate change of perpetual rainfall.  To which the fictional premise would make a worthwhile story, despite the fact that reality is actually more interesting, with a Chinese government who encouraged hyper consumption for its citizens, while mixed with authoritarianism, is as close to a science fiction story you could get.  Demna's ragtag collective of models, which look like they've stepped out of a Eastern European underground rave, have been toned back this time, interfused with mostly Chinese models.  The show reflected a tension, which I don't think was deliberate.  No one looks comfortable, with the persistent rain and degrees of impracticality of some of the attire; note the extreme heeled boots.

The collection literally looks washed out, messy and out of place.  I don't think anyone is under the illusion that China and America won't be at war one day.  And Demna's hyperreal Balenciaga seems to be losing traction, even if it does appear, as mentioned earlier, overtly serious and fumbled. 

___

(A.Glass 2024)