Balenciaga Fall 2021 Couture Collection

A fierce and noble elegance for our new age stalked through the haute couture salons of Balenciaga at 10 Avenue Georges V today. The sound of the suppressed gasps of fashion journalists and clients was heard again—albeit through masks—for the first time in the 53 years since Cristóbal Balenciaga closed his hallowed couture house. Monsieur Balenciaga showed in silence to focus the audience on the line, cut, and presence of his clothes. So did Demna Gvasalia.

Facing the biggest test of his career, Gvasalia brought a heightened dignity to his own revolutionary vision of 21st-century people while simultaneously honoring the greatest couturier of the 20th century. Hence, the audible gasps. This was recognizable Demna and recognizable Cristóbal in one. “It was my minute of silence to the heritage of Cristóbal Balenciaga but also a moment of silence to just shut up for a minute,” he said. “The pandemic made me take that minute of silence—or few months of silence—and really understand what I like in this ‘metier,’ as Cristóbal used to call it,” he said. “And I realized it’s not about fashion—actually, I love clothes. I’ve been talking about clothes, clothes, clothes rather than fashion.”

Demnaologists will know that’s why he originally started Vetements in 2014, on a mission to produce a wardrobe with a sense of generic authenticity yet crucially coded with the sociological irony that was instantly read, loved, and bought by the then marginalized generation of millennials. The power of that talent is what took him to the creative directorship of Balenciaga in the first place.

His couture debut had rigorous black tailoring, sober and austere; expansively extravagant gestures of taffeta; swathed stoles; gorgeous flowered embroideries; and the offhand drama of set-back collars. And haute couture jeans—hand-made on original American looms bought by Japanese manufacturers and commissioned there. To the point: The feat he managed with this ultra-aspirational collection was not to turn his back on the aesthetics of the street and underground but to give the inclusive values of a generation a sensational elevation. Confidence, grandeur, ease: His focus was on how to imbue these clothes with “couture allure, posture, and attitude,” he said. How to give equal value to a black turtleneck, pair of jeans, utility jacket, or T-shirt as to a grand ball gown or skirt suit? “People put me in the box of someone who designs hoodies and sneakers—and that’s not really who I am. I really wanted to show who I am as a designer, considering the legacy [of the house] that I’m lucky enough to have here,” he explained. “It was a challenge to find a balance between the fusion of the architectural legacy, the history, and what I stand for.”