Yahoo News Balenciaga's AW22 Show Was The Most Poignant, Personal And Political To Date
This year's Paris Fashion Week has been very different from usual, with news of the Ukraine-Russi conflict casting a dark cloud over proceedings and calling into question the very existence of such events in these turbulent times.
As Balenciaga's creative director Demna Gvasalia put it, in times like this 'fashion week feels like some kind of an absurdity' – but to cancel the shows 'would mean giving in, surrendering to the evil'. The sentiment was part of a heartfelt letter the designer penned and placed on the seats of the attendees of his Balenciaga AW22 show in Paris on Sunday.
The show itself was by far Demna's most poignant, personal and political to date. Scantily clad models battled their way through a wind and snow-filled arena which had originally been intended to be a comment on climate change, but took on a new meaning in light of current global affairs.
'This show needs no explanation,' continued Demna in the show notes. 'It is a dedication to fearlessness, to resistance, and to the victory of love and peace.' The designer described himself as a 'forever refugee', having fled his native Georgia as a child and eventually settled in Ukraine – and so his overt allusions to the current crisis were even more profound, from the Ukrainian poem he recited at the start of the show, to the Ukrainian flag-coloured looks and T-shirts in yellow and blue gifted to every guest.
The collection itself, meanwhile, was a mix of pared-back, minimal looks, bold silhouettes, graphic prints and a mostly black palette, while the standout accessory had to be the 'Trash Pouch', inspired by a bin bag and carried by models in a heartbreaking reference to the displacement of refugees.
Even the show invites were directly on-message: each guest received a broken iPhone with details of the show engraved on the back, with an accompanying note referring to it as 'a genuine artefact from the year 2022' which is 'nonfunctional' and damaged to due 'years of use and later, neglect'.
As ever, a slew of VIPs were in attendance, including Kim Kardashian whose appearance in a look from the show consisting solely of bright yellow, Balenciaga-branded tape brought an element of more light-hearted fun to the proceedings. The recently divorced business mogul posted an Instagram story of herself being wrapped in the tape before the show, which supposedly took the Balenciaga team a full 30 minutes to achieve.
Watch the full Balenciaga AW22 show here:
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