Balenciaga. Resort 2026 - Lookbook

(Images:  Balenciaga 2025)

Demna Gsvalia's last showing for Balenciaga, after a ten year tenure, with be his finale as Haute Couture showcase on July the 9th 2025.  The antithetical, pop culture infused, and paradoxical, yet controversial showman, will move across, within the Kering headquarters, to take over the creative reins of Gucci, to aesthetically save Kering, Balenciaga's holding company, share price, and Gucci's plunging sales.  So before the shift, Demna has set a passing reflection of how Gucci may be restructured by the Georgian born designer, seen with his last ever Resort lookbook for Balenciaga.

And over the last decade of Demna imprinting his ex-brand Vetements imprint onto the iconic fashion house, with his antithesis fashion statements which mostly were seen as a hyperreal commercial sales point.  Utilizing a bevy of celebritydom people to line the runway guest lists and appear in various advertising campaigns, while backlashing on the general populous desire to actually be apart of celebritydom via the digital relays.  Has been one of the proclaiming contradictions of Demna, and at times it has been hard to keep up with his aesthetic sentiments, although I feel after many reviews, I've got the gist of what his motivation is (was) for the luxury brand. 

Resort 2026 sets a precedence of Demna's astuness for crafting and defining his original take on Balenciaga, which at times there were hits and misses.  The lookbook offers some of the finest cuts to date, and with five Couture shows under his belt, with a 6th coming up in early July, despite his leaning towards the backlash of fashion, there is no doubt that he has also shown a respectful acknowledgement to the legacy of Cristóbal Balenciaga.

Demna's final lookbook for Balenciaga under resort, his not groundbreaking nor particularly outstanding, but as an impression of his 10 year legacy with the Balenciaga brand name, shows that his repetition, within context of Demna own take on mastery, has created a strange type of template that the next designer, who will be Pierpaolo Piccioli, of Valentino fame, will need to best.  Can a couturier like Piccioli, maintain Demna's backlash styles?  And will Demna be able to redefine Gucci, a somewhat cursed fashion brand, into his backlash style?  With his ragtag team of models in tow?  Only time will tell.  

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(A.Glass 2025)