‘They have caused chaos, gone viral and created a sellout buzz’: the rise and fall of the fashion house Balenciaga
The trailer for new Disney+ TV drama Cristóbal Balenciaga is a feast of mid-century elegance. The miniseries tells the tale of the Spanish designer and fashion innovator, revered for his dress designs from the 1950s and 60s. His story deserves to be as well known as that of Coco Chanel or Hubert de Givenchy. However, this tale of rags to riches couldn’t be further from the house of Balenciaga today – arguably the most controversial major fashion house of the modern age.
Cristóbal ended his brand in the 1960s but it was revived again in the 1990s.
Under the stewardship of current creative director Demna Gvasalia (known by his first name) since 2015, the current iteration of Balenciaga has pioneered a thoroughly modern fashion idea: stunt dressing.
Some of Balenciaga’s greatest hits include a towel doubling as a skirt, with a £695 price tag. There were also purposefully dirty trainers, a catwalk covered in mud, a collection modelled by the Simpsons and a bag resembling Ikea’s £3.99 Frakta, but which cost £1,790. All of these things have caused outrage, gone viral and created sellout buzz.
But sometimes this tendency to provoke goes too far. Late last year, the brand was under fire and eventually apologised for an advertising campaign depicting children who were holding teddybears in bondage outfits and featuring legal documents relating to child sexual abuse.
In March 2023, for his first collection since that scandal, Demna appeared to have turned over a new leaf, saying he would no longer design collections that “press buttons”. But last month, however, Balenciaga staged a show in LA designed to satirise the “green juice and yoga” stereotype of the city’s residents. It was next-level stunt dressing. Models wore leggings and used their phones while walking down a runway in front of the Hollywood sign. There was even a collaboration with Erewhon, a cult LA grocery store frequented by celebrities including Hailey Bieber, and famous for $22 smoothies.
Balenciaga has thus become one of the most influential fashion houses with younger generations. Nina Maria, who writes about fashion for publications including 1Granary, created by students at Central Saint Martins. She says: “Balenciaga has the sort of audience who would buy a towel skirt. If Chanel did that, I don’t think anyone would buy it … Demna knows how to engineer social media. It’s about an immediate moment.”
Of course, it’s not the only brand that leverages viral influence to gain publicity and buzz. But Demna’s work led the way, showing how, in the digital age, fashion has changed from an industry concerned primarily with cut and silhouette to focus on clothes that reference memes in digital culture.
This can come from designs that are inspired by something within social media - such as a “clapback” T-shirt responding to a negative online comment, as with fashion bean Vaquera’s recent T-shirt reading “obscene dress” – or designs that aim to become a trend, topic or meme. Examples of this in 2023 include the oversized MSCHF Big Yellow Boots, released in June, or Schiaparelli’s dresses with animal heads, worn by Kylie Jenner in January.
Denma was hired by Balenciaga in 2015 after his first year with Vetements, the label he co-founded with brother Guram that became famous for putting a sellout £185 DHL T-shirt on the catwalk – arguably a moment that kicked off the stunt dressing trend. Maria says his satirical take on popular culture comes from his upbringing in post-Soviet Georgia, which gives him an outsider’s perspective: “Most Americans were offended by the last show in LA because it was making fun of the USA. But for him, America is a weird kind of culture and he loves provoking.”
While Demma’s point of view might sound like the opposite of the rarified elegant world of Cristóbal Balenciaga, there are parallels. The house’s founder was also something of an outsider. As the Disney+ series will illustrate, Cristóbal arrived in Paris in 1937 after the Spanish civil war meant he had to close his stores in his home country. Gaining clients such as Audrey Hepburn and Ava Gardner, he went on to compete with French titans Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, and to be idolised by them: Dior called him “the master of us all”. He was also a radical – his purposefully shapeless “sack” dress in 1957 was controversial in the figure-hugging 1950s.
Cassie Davies-Strodder who curated the Shaping Fashion: Balenciaga exhibition at the V&A museum in 2017, argues that the founder would appreciate the work at his brand in 2023. “Unlike some of his contemporaries who remained true to [their aesthetic] for decades, Balenciaga made a point of pushing boundaries and moving with the times,” she says. “In this respect, I am sure he would admire the work of the current house, how it has tapped into the zeitgeist and is leading fashion once more.”
There may, however, be something of a shelf life for Demna’s influential stunt dressing. Fashion critic Odunayo Ojo, known as Fashion Roadman on Youtube, recently posted a video titled ‘Should Demna leave Balenciaga? Out of ideas?’, discussing the LA show. Does he think Demna’s influence is fading? “Right now? No. If it continues doing the same thing, I think it definitely will do.”
Ojo elaborates that there is a shift online in the response to new collections from Balenciaga. “I’ve seen it transition from everyone saying ‘oh my God, this is so funny’ to some people saying ‘OK, this is getting a bit stagnant’. And now I think it’s maybe 60% of the people are saying that it’s stagnating.”
Davies-Strodder hopes that the Disney+ TV series will bring one of fashion’s great names to the attention of a new generation. She says Cristóbal’s work has influenced current designers from Molly Goddard to Iris Van Herpen, but recalls the challenges around the meaning of a Balenciaga design in the lead-up to the V&A exhibition. “Particularly in younger fashion enthusiasts, the name was more often associated with trainers than couture craftsmanship I think this TV show could underline [Cristóbal’s] relevance today both in terms of his compelling character and his skill and continued influence.”
