Balenciaga Couture's 53rd Collection Reimagines the Ordinary Through Cristóbal's Lens

Cristóbal Balenciaga is heralded as “The Master” of haute couture, even many decades after his House closed in 1968 and his death four years later. The designer’s exquisite and often radical creations—balloon hems and sack dresses among them—set the pace for what was to be expected on fashion’s highest-end runways. Christian Dior once put it well: “Haute couture is like an orchestra whose conductor is Balenciaga. We other couturiers are the musicians, and we follow the direction he gives.”

So, when Demna takes the reins on Balenciaga’s present-day couture lines, the pressure is no joke.

“This couture collection is a tribute to subculture dress codes as important influences of my fashion vocabulary,” Demna wrote in the collection notes for Balenciaga Couture’s 53rd collection. Wisely, his mood board was tacked with four staple shapes from Cristóbal’s last two decades of couture: “3/4 length sleeves, a focus on profile of silhouette and cocoon shapes, extravagant and at times eccentric headwear and fabric innovation.” These pillars informed the line’s bare bones, while Demna’s own punchy personal style tropes filled in the gaps.

In the first look, a seemingly everyday T-shirt becomes luxe with silk scuba satin lining, which bolsters the silhouette’s stiff, bulbous shape. Other tops are embellished with oil hand-painted drawings of rebellious rockers; flannel shirts employ silk tuffetage embroidery, and jackets that appear to be tied around the waist are actually attached to trousers as one piece. These parts of the collection might look underdressed for the occasion, but it is Demna’s quiet perversion of circadian pieces—with fine textiles, avant-garde shapes, intricate design processes and the like—that places them in the brand’s couture category.

The Cristóbal-inspired, Demna-fied headpieces are not to be missed. Fanning, feathered hats conceal their wearers’ identities, as do bowl-shaped iterations draped with T-shirts. Meanwhile, kaleidoscopic butterfly masks put the camp in the line’s streetwear-leaning ensembles and dramatic eveningwear alike.

In that latter category, faux fur coats enlist synthetic hair that is shaped and dyed over the course of roughly two and a half months; and form-hugging gowns make use of upcycled garments and rogue materials, reimagining their parts as bustiers. A white column dress, in particular, is built with melted plastic bags that are molded to the human form. A safety-pinned iteration, on the other hand, is composed of black leather without any cut edges.

On the neck of a molded “second skin” dress, Demna placed an original archival Cristóbal necklace from 1960, more directly nodding to the House’s brilliant founder. The touching tribute preceded the final look, a black nylon gown made with 47 meters of fabric and draped on its model in a “choreographed process” by the couture atelier team. Crafted for show—not purchase—the closing ensemble can only be worn once.

At large, this collection platforms Demna’s disruptive fashion sense through the lens of Cristóbal’s most adored codes. It’s worth zooming in on these silhouettes to find the subversions that qualify Demna’s new-age couture.

See Balenciaga Couture’s 53rd collection in the gallery above.