Demner's Clothing argued that you can put more handwork into a ball gown than you can into a shirt. (Charbit told me, "Demna puts creativity and innovation and effort into things that people were like, 'Oh, we need that to sell ourselves.'") But he also respected the limitations of your shirt. Can throw in the jar. Haute couture shows traditionally end with a wedding dress. Demna said he was trying to come up with something clever. Ultimately, she decides to repeat the 1967 oval dress. "It couldn't have gone better," she said.
Demna was never interested in creating what he dubbed "retinal" fashion to borrow from Duchamp: clothes that simply please the eye. His detractors say his designs are downright ugly. Even some of his followers. "Usually every season there's one or two things where I'm like, 'Okay, that's gone too far. That's just disgusting," said painter and model Eliza Douglas with a laugh. "Then I realize that a few days later, I'm like, 'Oh my god, that's the point.' He recently went through the process with a pair of blunt-nosed shiny hooves.
His thigh-high boots and shoulder-padded turtleneck are Francis Bacon's extremist observation that beauty comes from strangeness of proportion. His love of dull colours, dark prints and artificial details are reminiscent of provincial market stalls. "It has various references and the courage to use them," says Sophie Fontanelle, the critic. "He was convinced that something sophisticated, flashy counted as courage ." ( Plouc means "to wander.") What people see as ugly is often tension: physically comfortable pieces that cause aesthetic discomfort; Technically clean garments with external defects. "There's one dress that really haunted us," Demna said of a delicate black lace gown that his team pounded into the crater over three days. Unlike the fashion precedent, he practiced sadism towards clothes rather than taking them.
The goal, of course, was to get people talking. “If it doesn't get an answer, it doesn't exist,” Demna once told me. "That's probably my biggest fear." According to a 2021 article published by a University of Lisbon academic, Demna is responsible for "introducing the meme into fashion." A clear example of this is their clickbait bag: a trash bag in calfskin, an IKEA- style tote bag in shiny leather, a $1500 crumpled bag designed like a layered bag of chips and available in four variations ( Classic, Lemon, Salt and Vinegar) and Flamin'Hot). Analyst firm LaunchMetrics found that the heavy bag generated $2 million in media impact value in one week.
It's true Throughout Demner's career, observers have struggled to figure out whether he was an amiable misfit or a cunning cynic. Artist and critic Hito Steyrle likened Balenciaga's hype machine to the Trump and Brexit campaigns, using "the momentum of the shock and subsequent normalization" to push products. Demna is subtly tied to the attention economy. He is a digital native and knows how important it is to have conversations. It doesn't always have to be positive. Given this ability to excite people, it's hard to believe that the mood of the gift shop images wasn't a conscious choice, even if the intention was to attract attention without causing mistakes.
People often fear that Demna's joke is in their accounts. “Over time I realized he was drawn to ambiguity and there were boundaries and we didn't really know,” Douglass told me. Demna writes: “The beauty of some questions is that they don't always have answers. But he's exceptionally candid about the thinking behind his more outward moves. He told me he designed the IKEA bag in the tradition of Duchamp and reversed cultural hierarchies. Reminiscent of the top of the 1990 Margiela Franprix bag. More importantly, it's inspired by Demna's personal story and commemorates the four years of fashion school he spent carrying his portfolio in a bag like this. She even made the bag in yellow, a color you only get if you steal it from an IKEA store . "I never thought irony was bad," Demna said. "Instead of being offended, you can laugh it off and say, 'That's funny.'"
Although he is ambivalent about some of his ubiquitous creations. On the Triple S sneaker: "I can't see it anymore, you're sick of it." Speed Sock-Shoe: "Now it makes me cry." One day in Paris he takes out his phone and says he's having a group chat with some superfans who give him honest feedback on his work. One was studying communications in the UK while the other was living in the US doing who knows what. They've never met in real life, but, Demna said, "they probably know more about my world than anyone." One of them had just texted her about a skintight bubblegum-colored mini dress with a repeating Balenciaga logo.
"He said, 'Did you really do that, or did the corporate team make you up?'"
“Did you answer? I asked.
"I said I did, but it was obviously not something I woke up and felt compelled to do ."
In 2021, Demna agreed to promote fashion at the Met Gala with Kim Kardashian. She couldn't wait to walk the red carpet and then talk to so many famous people she'd never met. The dress code was "American Freedom". Demna and Kardashian matched in all black outfits, their faces covered in matte black masks. Only the six Grim Reapers were missing.
“I was scared,” Demna told me. "So this was my solution. Obviously, it had a conceptual twist because of who I was with. Until recently, he insisted on being photographed with an oval polyurethane visor made by Mercedes-Benz engineers. ( I went to one of the salons of the George V Avenue brand. I tried it on. It was incredibly light. I felt invincible. I'll wear it. I think I'd get $5600 for it. A visor and a completely different life.) He says , Ha said he covered his face because he had issues with his body, especially after seeing a picture of him "with a triple chin" taken at a conference. I pointed out to him that wearing a mask allowed him to see more. "Yeah, it happens eventually," he admitted. "I feel it sometimes. Sometimes I do — somehow, subconsciously, I crave that attention. Laugh a little. "Oh my god, that's weird. It's something I've discussed a lot with my therapist."
"I absolutely don't think it's going to hurt," Demna said as she sat at her simple table at the Kronenhall, a wood-panelled restaurant in Zurich with Matisses and Meers lining the walls. He ordered the plant based chicken and hash browns. A small jug of lemon juice to drink. He had a full Embalenciagado with silver hoops in his ears. I asked him if the advertising scandal could usher in a new era of lost nerves and creativity. "I'm back on the sewing highway," she said, pulling a sleeve over her shoulder to reveal a tattoo of her name. "But my dilemma right now is finding a balance between dressing well but not being too conservative or classic."
It was a gray and foggy Monday in February. Before lunch we went for a walk. Demna chose Framunster as her meeting place, a copper-colored church not far from the garden where she and Gomez were married in 2017, she said. The pair watched a Netflix thriller called Alice in the Borderlands over the weekend. They were packing for an upcoming move to the French countryside near Geneva. Demner had an appointment to do some paperwork, and an agent asked why he was moving. "I don't speak Swiss German, so it was a bit awkward," she recalls. "Well, actually, that was an answer. I said, 'Yeah, that's one of the reasons: because I don't understand what you're saying.' "
As we strolled through Zurich's shopping district, Demner's snug hoodie and kids' club pants caught a glance or two. (The feeling was mutual. 'I find people from Zurich dressing particularly badly,' he told me. 'I don't know what it is. It really is – I'm quite surprised.') The classic Cristobal, a very A sweatshirt a long t-shirt that stick out adds volume to a babydoll dress like foundation.
At Kronenhall, the plates looked familiar: white porcelain, cobalt blue borders, and a bold monogram. I remembered my tea when I first met Demna, a similar set, the cup that said "Balenciaga Hotels & Resorts." (Of course, that doesn't exist.) At the time, the cup of tea annoyed me a little. Does everything have to be an escape? I've always thought. Does everything have to be a product? Now, in his closed old den, I saw him as more than just an expression of affection.
Troll or truthful, idealistic or ironic? Demna was everything and nothing, playing in the uncomfortable and fertile ground of accepted paradoxes. Now he announces the end of his "masquerade time". flashy shows and all the other "simple but thrilling" distractions that "tempted" him from the essentials. "I could make ten IKEA bags, but the only way to grow is to get out of that comfort zone," she told me. “What would be the most shocking thing to my audience? I speak to people who know my work. Could it be another provocative thing? Or would it actually go back to my roots and create coats you'll never want to give up?"
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