SSENSE's New Balenciaga Editorial Takes on the Unsettling Idea of "Big Data"
“Is it corporate culture, or is it critique?”
For its latest editorial, Montreal-based retailer SSENSE has mixed pieces from Balenciaga‘s 2017 fall/winter collection with a look at the concept of ‘big data’ and the use of data-driven psychoanalysis. The text accompanying the editorial describes this kind of data as working out your character through a set of “psychometrics” that “ascertain personality traits by tracking desires, fears, late-night Google searches.” The editorial also explains why the Demna Gvasalia-helmed French label is the perfect juxtaposition to this new and unsettling internet reality: “To be break-the-internet enigmatic is the only defense, and Balenciaga indifferently evades every finger you try to put on it. Is it corporate culture, or is it critique?”
If you want more from SSENSE, check out the retailer’s recent interview with Luka Sabbat, which saw the fashion wonderkid discuss everything from video games to COMME des GARÇONS.
