Balenciaga Couture 54th Collection by Demna


Abstract

  • Balenciaga has unveiled Demna’s closing assortment, with the model’s 54th Couture present paying tribute to Paris and the evolving ethos of Cristobal Balenciaga.
  • The marketing campaign showcased Demna’s refined tackle “La Bourgeoisie” and Hollywood glamour, alongside elevated on a regular basis gadgets, together with the primary Balenciaga Couture sneaker — signaling a return to refined magnificence.

On Wednesday, Balenciaga unveiled Demna’s closing assortment in Paris, marking the tip of the designer’s decade-long tenure on the greater than 100-year-old home.

“Trend lives on the sting of tomorrow, pushed not by what we all know however the thrill of discovering what comes subsequent,” Demna wrote in a hand-penned notice to attendees of Balenciaga’s 54th Couture assortment. The profound assertion reads like a manifesto, talking past Balenciaga to style as an entire, embedded in a strategy of evolution. “It’s the expression of our have to evolve, to make sense of change earlier than it arrives, to decorate the long run earlier than it has a reputation,” he concluded.

The marketing campaign pays tribute to town the place the designer started his style journey, which included a just lately surfaced internship rejection from Balenciaga in 2007, earlier than he took the helm in 2015. Recognizable faces from the Balenciaga group, together with Kim Kardashian, Naomi Campbell, and Thai actor Krit Amnuaydechkorn entrance the editorial, located in varied avenue corners and landmarks of Paris.

First, the costume codes of “La Bourgeoisie” are distilled and Demna-fied with tulip lapels and protruding shoulders. Right here, “monumental” ladies’s tailoring reads extra as armor, clad in tremendous materials. Daring prints are sprinkled conservatively, finest represented in a textured houndstooth based mostly on a 1967 design and a sequined floral impressed by a chunk from the ’50s.

Later, Kim Kardashian — sporting an off-white fur coat with a lace-trimmed slip costume and Lorraine Schwartz jewels — introduces a spread of appears to be like impressed by Hollywood glamour, a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor.

As extra males’s appears to be like enter the combo, we’re reminded of Demna’s affinity for reimagining the on a regular basis. An ultra-light silk bomber jacket, a first-ever Balenciaga Couture sneaker — handcrafted utilizing conventional shoemaking strategies, a briefcase turned “jewellery field” laptop computer case, and trompe-l’œil corduroy recall the ways in which the designer likes to elevate the mundane to the extraordinary, usually in a covert or tongue-in-cheek method.

In some ways, it feels as if the designer is wiping the slate clear earlier than Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino takes the submit. Demna’s closing spectacle for the model is subdued, elegant, and swish, dialing in on the best particulars reasonably than ironic gimmicks.

“I’ve come as shut as attainable to being happy on this limitless pursuit of unattainable perfection,” he shared in an official assertion, “the defining ethos of Cristóbal Balenciaga.”

See the gallery above for a more in-depth have a look at Balenciaga Couture’s 54th assortment and keep tuned to Hypebeast for the newest style insights.