Balenciaga
It’s unfortunate that the general discourse surrounding the 51st couture collection by Balenciaga—Demna’s second for the Maison—focuses more on the hype it created: Kim K on the runway, Nicole Kidman’s Stepford Wives walk, and the poor model who had to navigate her massive hoop skirt through the audience’s feet ... For where the actual collection is concerned, it’s nothing short of a huge success.
As with his couture debut, Demna pays homage to Cristóbal Balenciaga’s legacy, updating archival looks with new couture treatments. So we see draped dresses with trains, capes, scarf tops, bows and gathered skirts reinterpreted with exclusive colours, shiny coatings, extreme silhouettes (including corsetted waists for men) and specially developed fabric treatments.
The latter takes a page directly from Cristóbal Balenciaga’s playbook when in 1958 he had a special fabric— the Gazar, a moudable silk—conceived especially for him. Now, Demna introduces a Japanese limestone-based neoprene into the couture vocabulary. Making up what are possibly the strongest looks from the collection, these garments were completed with 3D-printed padding and wetsuit-inspired zippers made all the more futuristic thanks to anti-fogging, breathable face shields designed by way of aerospace and motorsports technology.
In fact, innovation is integral to Demna’s vision of the future of couture. Ever a master of subversion, in Demna’s adept hands, neoprene is couture, raw denim is couture, t-shirt is couture. Only here, Japanese denim is indigo selvedge washed, satinlined, then finished with silver-plated buttons. T-shirts are bonded with aluminum, manipulated to hold their windswept, ruffled shapes intact. Sustainability—here a serious practice beyond mere trendy buzzword—informed over a quarter of the collection, where vintage bombers, parkas, car coats, and jeans are deconstructed and reassembled to create new structured designs. Additionally, the show’s soundtrack is supplied by Speaker bags carried by the models (a collab with Bang & Olufsen).
But what is couture without some glitz? Balenciaga’s couture crew produced unconventional textures with the help of paillettes. Faux fur is created using high-definition photography mapping and weeks of programming while in one leopard coat, 150 kilometers of thread is hand tufted. Feathers are realised through multiple embroidery techniques, using boned organza or cut silk. So when talking about the Balenciaga Haute Couture Autumn/Winter ’22 collection itself, the hype is not only real but very, very much warranted.