Balenciaga Un-Archives Its Instagram Feed

Wiping your Instagram feed is de rigueur in the world of high fashion. Burberry did it recently with the unrolling of Daniel Lee’s debut collection, Jean Paul Gaultier also cleaned its presence online once, and Bottega Veneta took it one step further by deleting Instagram entirely. But as many fashionphiles remember, Balenciaga‘s wipe was the most impactful of them all. Now, it’s back.

Demna‘s Balenciaga is cloaked in visual inspirations. Its Instagram was a mood board for all to share and draw inspiration from, and ultimately, it told the story of the brand. Pictures were vague, candid, and went against the grain of a polished fashion brand account. Instead, we had meme-able moments, 0.5x zoom selfies, irreverence clashing with nostalgia and luxury, and an air of not taking itself too seriously.

In the time since wiping its account, Balenciaga flicked between uploading and deleting dozens of times. Each show brought a new round of lookbook images, and campaigns starring Kim Kardashian would take center stage on other occasions. Likewise, prior to Balenciaga’s Winter 2023 show, the House uploaded old snapshots and videos of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s shows.

As Hypebeast previously argued, “For Balenciaga, Looking Back is the Only Way Forward.” With that, the brand brings back its IG feed, unarchiving images from June 18, 2018, to June 16, 2021. Likewise, it has littered its Stories with its own posts, announcing its digital revival.

Take a look at the archive-packed Instagram feed here.

In related news, it seems the brand has also brought a new Trash Bag-bag out in the form of the Crush Tote.