Demna Does It All for the Clicks in Balenciaga FW24
Delivering an array of DIY styles in front of a massive screen, exploring what fashion means in today’s digital age of constant content consumption.
Balenciaga sent guests an eBay package to invite them to the show, each one a unique, vintage offering; this DIY sentiment served as the perfect intro to Demna‘s Fall/Winter 2024 foray. For the label’s Paris Fashion Week showcase, Balenciaga explored the existential question plaguing many industry professionals: what even is fashion?
“The Winter 24 invitation is a random object found on eBay, the platform used by Demna to search for antique collectibles. These inspire the imagination of personal stories, which gives the objects a new life,” the invitation read. “Each invitation is a unique and personal found object selected by Demna, representing memorabilia from someone’s past and holding a sense of the familiar yet mysterious.”
Rather than compiling show notes, Demna presented a handful of voice memos to explain the collection in his own words. Stylenotcom shared the below highlights:
“As you know, I like to question things that matter to me through my work, and some of the questions I have been thinking about recently are: what is luxury? What is fashion and why does it even matter? Who do I do what I do for? Is fashion enough? In a world oversaturated by content, is anything ever enough” What is enough? The important part is not necessarily finding answers, but the process of questioning in itself.”
He continued on: “I wanted this show to represent a link between the past and the future of Balenciaga as a house based on creative value. It starts with silhouettes and themes directly inspired by the legacy of Cristóbal and evolves into further experimentation with the ideas that make up my body of work: the rethinking of the concept of beauty, the forging of an immediately recognizable style and the consideration of how the body interacts with garments.”
The first model dons a leopard-printed gown, and chomps on chewing gum as she struts. The screen behind the runway wraps around the entire room, shifting between different backdrops spanning desert landscapes and icebergs.
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Accessories – dystopian eyewear and headwear specifically – stood out among the collection’s 68 looks as well as quippy graphics: one embroidered with the eBay insignia, another with “Keep Calm and Wear This Balenciaga Sweater.” Closing out the show came a floor-length underwear gown.
“This collection is about the aesthetic I have been evolving in fashion for exactly 10 years now. It is about identifying with and belonging to this aesthetic.”
Check out Balenciaga’s full Fall/Winter 2024 collection in the gallery above, and stay tuned to Hypebeast for updates on all things Paris Fashion Week.
