excerpt: Balenciaga. Couture 2025/2026 - Paris

 

"After 10 years, Demna Gvasalia has held his final show, and to be a complete finale for Balenciaga, it was a couture showing, which in his ten year tenure, Demna was only able to offer five couture collections, including this one, to be his last.  Considering, although in name only, that Balenciaga was a couture exclusive under Cristóbal Balenciaga, before Ready-to-Wear became the runway favourite for the fashion industry template, followed by other seasonal collections.  Demna's homage, in its irony, is of course in name only, in the shape of Demna's Balenciaga, be it of his exaggerated, postmodern pieces, with only a slight nod to the late Cristóbal himself.

The transfer of Demna from Balenciaga to Gucci under Kering, the holding company who owns both these luxury brand names, was not a creative decision, but solely a business one.  Kering, which is owned by French Billionaire François-Henri Pinault, in desperation to its falling share price, which has plunged 37% in one year, mostly due to Gucci's collapsing sales, and mostly to do with the Chinese consumer tightening their belts, since in our strange hyperreal world, we no longer have recessions,and inflation is called high costs of living.  The luxury sector, like everything else, is unable to bypass the reality that capitalist markets eventually do go bust. 

Regardless, Demna who was relatively an unknown designer from Georgia, who descended onto the Paris fashion world in 2013, with his brother Guram, under their brand Vetements.  Did indeed, under Balenciaga, carve a niche for Kering.  Decreeing his anti-fashion ethos, within its 1990s Eastern European charm of reworking back to the Western Fashion world, a sardonic overture of knock offs, and imitation streetwear styles, to which has its roots from the East Europe rave scene of 35 years ago, where counterfeit ADIDAS, and other U.S., U.K., France sports brands held a lost-in-translation Westren allure, be it from their odd sizing, large fits, strange lettering and everything else in between..."

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(A.Glass 2025)

Full review: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/07/balenciaga-couture-20252026-paris.html 

Spring/Summer 2026 review soon.