![]() And now: America!Īmerica is greedy and dark and “money is probably the biggest fetish in the world,” as Demna said backstage. As weird as Balenciaga is, Demna has propelled the brand to its perch of influence by embracing things so plain and simple and ubiquitous that we see them anew: Kim Kardashian, celebrity divorces, The Simpsons. ![]() A lot of artists, thinkers, and creative people hesitate to do that. ![]() Maybe the reason why it works when Demna creates these sweeping, chilling visions of global force is that he is embracing the obvious (in fact, he is fascinated by it). Surely I’m not the only one who’s tired of because capitalism!-type thinking, a dominant strain of complaining online (and also off) that blames all the ills of the world with a shrug on the behemoth machine of economic power. You know.because we’re slaves to capitalism. Every model wore a bondage suit under their look. His models tramped through the stock exchange like they owned the place, their precise power-hungry tailoring punctuated with enormous black clown shoes. A country never looks so pure as through the eyes of a foreigner, and Demna, who is Georgian and designs out of France but lives mostly in Switzerland, showed us Americans (especially New Yorkers) as he sees us: work obsessives with briefcases and blazers, CFOs in big black coats. This is the first time Demna has shown in America, though he noted backstage that Americans were some of the first to embrace his Balenciaga vision. That was the primal pleasure of his New York show. Demna makes you feel seen, but in a bad way. He holds a mirror up to-well, not nature, but all that is highly synthetic and banal and overly familiar. ![]() The only thing we can say for sure is that he is our most influential living fashion designer–so anthropological is his work that the whole world has looked like Balenciaga over the past few years, whether it’s the tourists on the street outside of the New York Stock Exchange, where the show was held, or the world’s wealthiest people, who always seem to have the worst clothes. But how do we define his role? Is he fashion’s best comedian? When asked why he collaborated with Adidas for his Spring 2023 show, staged on Sunday in Manhattan, he said, “Well, I always wanted to use three stripes.” Ha! Or, with his pounding music and gimp-mask covered models, maybe he is fashion’s best horror director? Balenciaga creative director Demna has been hovering on top of the fashion world for almost eight years now.
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