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Balenciaga Presents Toned Down Paris Fashion Show in Wake of Controversial Ad Campaign
Edited by: TJVNews.com
The upscale fashion brand Balenciaga has known better days, but in the throes of trying to get back on top of its game. Consumers and aficionados of the brand whose brainchild is creative designer Demna had been simmering with outrage over its portrayal of young children in BDSM type of ads. It seemed that the world came crashing down on Balenciaga in one fell swoop.
The New York Times reported that Balenciaga published two ad campaigns. Of those, one involved young children holding bags that looked like teddy bears in bondage gear; the other depicted an office in which buried in a giant mess of papers were documents about a Supreme Court case on child pornography.
A maelstrom of internet outrage, chaos and conspiracy theories ensued and took on a life of its own, with Demna and the house’s chief executive, Cédric Charbit, at its center, the NYT reported. Since then they have been quietly working to put things right, including one-on-one post-mortems with industry insiders and mea culpas about the systemic and judgment failures that allowed the campaigns to happen, the Times reported.
The Wall Street Journal reported that fallout led to a “difficult month of December” for the brand, Kering SA, the brand’s owner, said last month. Balenciaga’s sales were affected in the U.S., the U.K. and the Middle East, executives said.
As the scandal mushroomed, the brand pulled all of its advertising, going mute in the U.S. for December and much of January, according to the WSJ report. The brand now aims to return to its planned marketing schedule after starting to increase its communications again in recent weeks.
Last Wednesday, the New York Post reported that the embattled brand listed an ad for a vice president of communications to be based in New York.
A key responsibility is to “support in the development and execution of external and internal crisis communications strategy and responses,” the Post reported.
A “reasonable estimate” of the salary is between $150,000 and $200,000, the listing states, even after French owners Kering admitted to financial “challenges” sparked largely by blowback to the BDSM ads.
“This is an exciting opportunity to join Balenciaga’s Corporate team,” the job ad brags, as was reported by the Post.
On Sunday, at the fall 2023 Balenciaga fashion show in Paris, a toned-down display was the attraction of the day and in some ways illustrated the biggest public statement since the furor began in late October.
According to a report in GQ Magazine, Demna wrote in show notes left on attendee’s seats, “Fashion has become a kind of entertainment, but often that part overshadows the essence of it, which lays in shapes and volumes, silhouettes, the way we create relationships between body and fabric, the way we make shoulder lines and armholes, the way clothes have an ability to change us,” From now on, Demna declared, “fashion can no longer be seen as an entertainment, but rather as an art of making clothes.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that company executives had touted the show, Demna’s first since the controversy erupted, as an important moment to reset the brand’s image. Those gathered for the show under the pyramid of the Louvre in Paris saw a different side to brand’s creative designer.
“I went back to square one,” Demna said. “That’s where I started, making clothes. And now I go back there with more experience.”
The WSJ reported that Demna, who dropped his last name Gvasalia to go by a mononym, said that making the collection had been therapeutic for him and allowed him to take refuge from the criticism that was swirling. “I feel very relieved. I really feel like I needed that show to happen to move on and to express who I am and what I stand for,” he said, according to the WSJ report.
Demna began cutting up trousers and sewing them into new forms, according to a report on GQ.com. “Jackets, coats—it became actually the whole tailoring part of the collection,” he said. The show began with these pieces, trouser waistbands forming the hems of oversized blazers and coats. The dark wool pants were layered with more pants, giving each model a sort of strangely elegant four-legged silhouette, as was reported by GQ.com.
The WSJ also reported that the show contained flourishes that the fashion world has come to expect from the designer. Models walked the runway wearing jackets with inflatable forms sewn into them, transforming their body’s dimensions. Some wore large biker boots based on motocross. The collection also included floor-length evening gowns, some of them lace embroidered or cast in velvet, and tied at the waist with a satin bow.
The trousers also signaled a return to the root of Demna’s journey as a designer, GQ reported. “I didn’t know why it was about pants until I realized, actually speaking to my mom, who reminded me it was the first garment I ever did in my life,” Demna said. A pair of tailored pants with pleats, he recalled, designed by 6-year-old Demna and made by a local tailor in his native Georgia. GQ also reported that Demna has previously explored the idea of returning home in order to introduce newness in his work, and this exercise was no different. “Somehow,” he said, “it almost felt like I had to deconstruct that in order to construct something new out of it.”
The second part of the collection recycled some more ideas that have proven to be big hits for Balenciaga, and which have influenced the wider fashion world in Demna’s direction: out came moto jackets, denim jackets, hoodies, and puffers, the building blocks of contemporary haute streetwear, as was reported by GQ. Only this time, there were no logos. “My idea was to really purify it, to edit it to the point where it speaks for itself, for everything I’ve done here for seven years,” Demna said, according to the GQ report.
The stage was minimalist, with a neutral canvas covering the runway. Some designs leaned on the archives of the brand’s founder, Cristóbal Balenciaga, a designer who rose from humble beginnings in a small Basque town in Spain to establish himself as one of the greatest couturiers of his era, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Even the music was sober. Demna told reporters after the show that it was a piece composed by his husband and which to him represented beauty, love and a new beginning, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Under the creative leadership of Demna, the 106-year-old brand has tried to create an impact, according to the WSJ reported. It has made luxury bags that look like a bag of chips and sold tattered sneakers for almost $2,000. The brand also nurtured cozy relationships with celebrities such as Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian, dressing the reality TV star for events ranging from the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner to the Met Gala, as was reported by the WSJ.
