Balenciaga Drops Couture Bang & Olufsen Speaker Bag and Mercedes-AMG Face Shield
Available in very limited quantities from its new Couture flagship store.
Balenciaga’s 51st Couture show was proof that Demna can do more than just create headline-grabbing collections, but in the designer’s usual ways nothing was as simple as it seemed. Throughout the show, models — which included the likes of Kim Kardashian, Naomi Campbell, Inti Wang, Dua Lipa, Christine Quinn, Nicole Kidman, Bella Hadid, Eduardo Camavinga and BFRND — were decked in the house’s finest thread, but littered throughout were nods to Demna’s subverted ways, such as a Balenciaga x Bang & Olufsen Speaker Bag and the Balenciaga Face Shield Engineered by Mercedes-AMG F1 Applied Science. Now, these two oddities are available to purchase.
The speaker bag combines Balenciaga’s aesthetic with Bang & Olufsen’s Danish sensibilities and technology, creating something that’s halfway between a boombox and a Couture object. A true hybrid, the piece can be used appropriately as both a bag and a Bluetooth speaker, and in true Balenciaga and Bang & Olufsen form, no detail has been missed.
Each of the 20 limited edition bags are milled from a block of solid aluminum before being pearl-blasted, anodized and hand-polished at Bang & Olufsen’s Factory 5 in Struer, Denmark, over the course of several days to achieve a satin finish. Here, Bang & Olufsen mill an array of holes into one side and add functionality and button controls to the top of the bag underneath the handle, while on the other side, a flap door reveals the interior of the bag.
As for the Balenciaga Face Shield Engineered by Mercedes-AMG F1 Applied Science, things get even more technical. Made by an engineering-focused business division of Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd. that is dedicated to leveraging aerospace and motorsport technologies, the face shield is made of ink-tinted, coated polyurethane that is molded and polished by hand to fully fit the wearer — as it did on various models on the runway.
Months of testing went into creating an aerodynamic, anti-fog and breathable shield that can be used to optimize flow, improve performance metrics, and ensure a stabilized CO2 intake while considering the effect of temperature on fogging.
Both the bag and shield can be seen above and bought from Balenciaga’s brand-new Couture flagship located in the 10 Avenue George V building. Take a closer look at both fashion statements above.
In other news, Olivier Rousteing has unveiled his vision for Jean Paul Gaultier Couture.
