It is maybe easy to suspect they spray something funny in the air or they spike the drinks at Demna Gvasalia's shows. That would be the only explanation to the dichotomic reactions his runways get.
Indeed, people sitting in the audience see the clothes on the runway as the expression of a radical genius, while ordinary consumers who do not identify with vapid fashionistas see second-hand clothes being interpreted as conceptual attire. Obviously, when the latter do so via comments underneath reviews and features, the fashion elite tells them they can't get the irony, the spirit, the satire and, yes, the revolutionary moods behind the designs. Frankly, quite often, it is better not to get them, but see the clothes for what they are.
Take Balenciaga's S/S 18 menswear show: Gvasalia opened it with roomy and oversized light linen jackets and coats, matched with washed out denim pants of the kind you wore between 1989 and 1993 (and that simply looked cringing).
At times the trousers were reinterpreted in different versions with three tiered zippered sections (hands up who had a pair of two tiered zippered denim trousers in 1983/84; I did, but I was also a child at the time…) in mismatched fabrics or in different materials such as denim, velvet and leather. Other designs included Hawaiian-print shirts, ample anoraks and a random black leather fringed coat.
Tracksuit tops also made a re-appearance, together with hoodies for all those Gvasalia fans who love wearing them tucked inside their trousers like juvenile delinquents.
Two models walked down the runway with bicycles, reminding us of the practicality of the accessories like the large new woven totes, or maybe hinting at the fact that the Balenciaga logo bike (retailing for 3,500 euros) is exclusively available at Colette.
The more conceptual items arrived towards the end of the show with shirts or sweats printed with optimistic slogans such as "The Power of Dreams" (printed on a piece of yellow fabric randomly applied on an orange hoodie), "Think Big", and "Europa!", the latter maybe a hymn at joining our collective forces in the face of divisions and hate.
Some of these garments were covered by a layer of clear plastic as if they had been vacuum-packed or had just returned from the dry cleaner. This is a trick we saw at the end of the '90s at Margiela and that was reused often by Raf Simons for example on Calvin Klein's A/W 2017 runway.
The rain ponchos with "Europa!" printed on the front also seemed suspiciously similar to the see-through poncho by Maison Martin Margiela that was actually the fashion label's A/W 2013 runway invitation.
There were other ideas borrowed or more simply copied: the large leather shopping bags looked indeed like the identical bags Margiela did for the S/S 2011 season or like Jil Sander S/S 2011 market plastic bags.
Now, if you go to a critic from a prominent and mainstream fashion magazine, they will tell you this is radical like the time Gvasalia turned the Ikea "Frakta" bag into a luxury item (yes, ah-ah, so postmodernist, they will emphasise, spotting in whatever Gvasalia does David Lynch's transcendental irony; just to confirm the feeling, win Peaks' Kyle MacLachlan was sitting in the front row at this show…).
Go and explain such critics that clothes should make you look better rather than making you look fresh out of a time machine from 1991, and they will tell you that the garment are deliberately studied to make you look uncool, they feature indeed weights in the pockets and linings to reproduce this sort of crinkled, loose and unfitting look (those teenagers who were after the same effect in 1991 would wear their father's own coat; I did it with serious consequences as I picked my father's best coat).
The uniform on the runway was actually supposed to be interpreted as the off-duty attire of the corporate workers seen on Balenciaga's A/W 17 runway. The final proof were the kids (some of them the models' own kids) on the runway in trademark Gvasalia designs.
The designer apparently was hinting at strolls with your (cool) dad in the park (the show was held in the Bois de Boulogne, a public park on the outskirts of Paris) or maybe he was just hinting at the possibility of starting a children's line like many other desperate designer label out there and hopefully getting invited at Pitti Bimbo to be hailed as a saviour of children's wear (obviously, this Balenciaga show will probably turn some selfish egomaniacal fashionista bloggers into children's wear experts…).
Mind you, I'm not sure how many dads will be adopting the triple layered pants in denim, velvet and leather, but, if someone does so, please remember to keep away glitter, non-washable paints, glue, slime, mud, sticky drinks, vomit and other interesting substances you deal with when children are around.
The problem with this collection was the fact that, while the idea behind it was a positive and optimistic one (children playing with their dads), the execution was dubious.
First and foremost most of these designs seemed stuck between 1989 and 1992 and, if you lived through these years, I doubt you would want to go around like a raver in baggy clothes from the pages of a random issue of The Face (as cool as the magazine was, there is a limit to what you can reborrow from the past without reinventing it in a credible way).
Second (but maybe it should be first and foremost…) the levels of appropriation in Gvasalia's runways are becoming utterly ridiculous with hints at Margiela turning into total rip offs.
Last but not least, the children: most designers employ children in catwalk shows for collections directed at grown-ups to distract the attention from messed up clothes. Children on D&G's runways are usually supposed to show how much the Italian design duo love the concept of "family", even though their real intent is usually selling matching mother-daughter looks.
In this case it felt more or less the same, as if Gvasalia was thinking at lovely images of fathers and children, reminding us that they can also have a matching cool look if they have the money to do so.
The final verdict? Ah, well, if the fashion avant-garde wants to look as the world looked between 1990 and 1992, it is definitely fine.
But don't come and tell us that this is the most radical revolution in fashion or you would be offending young fashion students who have invested money and time in a career in design and who may be spending sleepless nights on how to make their graduate collection look incredibly unique, before actually entering the fashion industry and discovering they were sold a lie since you can tweak the past, borrow from the present and put the results on the market at immoral prices.
More embarrassment arrived indeed today when hip hop artist and producer Swizz Beatz bravely (yes, bravely 'cos most fashion critics are shutting up about Gvasalia's exercise in borrowing and copying) accused the fashion house in two Instagram posts of stealing a Ruff Ryders shirt design from 2000.
In a first post he commented "@balenciaga we must have a talk about this Ruff Ryder shirt ASAP Dapper Dan with Gucci now this (…) ". In a second post the artist added "This is the Ruff Ryders original version from 2000 @balenciaga @vetements_official what are we doing? Call me back blessings. I Might just want you to open up a fashion school in the Bronx or Harlem just so you can give back to the culture!" Who knows, maybe Gvasalia in this case was trying to capitalise on the Ruff Ryders Reunion Tour, but with all the "collabs" he has done so far, he should have been aware that collaborating costs less than being ashamed by a lawsuit.
Gvasalia actually missed in this Balenciaga collection the chance to do another collaboration – shoes with Kickers. That would have offered the ultimate step into the past (pun intended) for the nostalgic raver (ah, so many memories, my Kickers were the classic red and white combination) and they would have worked for grown-ups and children as well. Guess we can expect it in the future, who knows, maybe together with anoraks by Gio-Goi and Bez on the maracas.
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