5 Things To Know About Demna Gvasalia’s First Balenciaga Haute Couture Show For AW21

Gvasalia showed his collection in complete silence, in tribute to the absence of noise that had birthed it during lockdown, and because Balenciaga himself worked in silence. It refocused attention on the garments, but also on his exceptionally diverse cast, who embodied the designer’s idea of who a couture client could be today. “I don’t like standardised beauty in general,” he pointed out. “Wearing those kinds of clothes is very new for most of these people, because they have their own style and attitude. But somehow, it gave them this posture that is built-in. And this is what couture does.” When those clients come to Balenciaga to place their couture orders in the future, fittings will happen in the salons where Gvasalia presented his show, restored and purposely aged to look exactly the way Cristobal left them in 1968. “His spirit is somewhere in these walls,” said the designer, who also imbued his garments with the trace of time. “It’s the decay that I always find very beautiful, much more beautiful than something new and freshly made.”