Moodboard: Dirty and worn looking pair of Adidas x Balenciaga collaboration sneakers. Retailed at over $800 USD.

"...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..."

From: Balenciaga.  Pre-Fall 2023 review (A.Glass 2024)