Uprooting Demna's Fashion
Demna, a great fashion icon honoring Cristobal Balenciaga. Similar or not, ruling the Fashion Industry.
I would give a big long introduction, but I prefer making a very clear point from the begging, I am talking about Demna Gvasalia, founder of former clothing brand Vetements, and actual creative director in fashion house Balenciaga, since April 2021 when he presented his first Pre-Fall collection, for the Parisian house, founded in 1937.
From my point of view has evolved our way of seeing fashion in so many ways, he doesn’t just show off a pair of trends, nice shoes and a new it bag, but in every collection he is representing what the world is actually living. The common ground between fashion and politics, society, has been displayed in his runways. Of course Demna wants us to shop, and of course his bosses do, too. But when it comes time to spend, my money's on the guy who looks around and is terrified, not the somnambulates.
He has had the power to shake everyone. Literally everyone, from people in the industry to people in the streets passing by a window display.
The past October the 2nd, Demna gave us a battlefield to talk about. Rising inequality, the return of fascism, the very real threat of nuclear war. He laid it all out at his post-apocalyptic show, trying, I think, to wake us up.
He had his own experience of war—he fled Georgia with his family when he was a young boy of 10. Being gay compounded his struggles. “I’ve felt like I’ve been punched in my face for being who I am,” he said, but “you have to stand up and continue walking, kind of like this crusade of discovering who you are and defending that.” He called this a “very me show.”
These were survivors against the odds, a point Demna made by sending out men clutching baby carriers propped with dolls. “Naturally I’m an optimist, but I cannot be very optimistic right now,” he said. “I think this show actually expresses that very much—the music, the set, it spoke about the moment in which we live.”
Cristobal Balenciaga and Demna, both in different ways, kept and keep fashion alive. The differences between each other’s styles is what makes them so alike. The house models were called the “monsters” as muses, in the other hand, Gvasalia, told Purple, “We use girls and guys who are our friends, who aren’t models, who don’t really care about fashion.”
They both wanted to express and show reality to their costumers, and what better way to explore this than throughout the individuals that wear their creations. The catwalks they walk, and most of all, what there’s behind every collection. A real thought and controversy happening in the actual world striking every soul.
Both disrupting the system by portraying reality, as raw as it can be.
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