Demna Gvasalia stages his own climate crisis at Paris Fashion Week

The Balenciaga catwalk show doubled as a cinematic masterpiece
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Karen Dacre1 March 2020

The spread of coronavirus may have put the brakes on the fashion world’s necessary preoccupation with the climate crisis but there are some who remain dedicated to the subject.

Unveiling his latest collection for Balenciaga at a catwalk show which doubled as a cinematic masterpiece, Demna Gvasalia appeared to hold the impending doom facing the planet at the forefront of his mind.

The house’s usual show space, a film studio on the outskirts of Paris, was transformed into a post-apocalyptic scene: guests took their seats in pitch blackness around a catwalk filled with 10 inches of water. Following a deafening clap of thunder the show began. An army of models, initially in head to toe black, waded through the waterlogged catwalk while dramatic footage which showed nature at its most powerful was projected onto the ceiling above. Torrential rain, raging fire, and a haunting flock of birds remisencet of Hitchcock’s iconic horror film were among the most cinematic moments in a spectacle which seemed to represent so much more than the sum of the clothes on the catwalk.

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Backstage Gvasalia said that the water on the catwalk represented petrol. “We are drowning in this shit, so i wanted the models to walk in it”. But otherwise, neglected to engage in a conversation about climate changeIt was a celebration of fashion. We still like to dress, we all need to wear clothes. It’s important to me to keep that fire alive”.

Was Gvasalia suggesting that fashion would live forever and irrespective of the planet's fate? Certainly, for a designer who has long looked to capture the ‘real’ side fashion with his work, he seemed to be hinting at the practice of wearing clothes as something that was ingrained in us all. “It’s a religion” he said.

This idea played out on the catwalk with capes for clergy men and women - worn with branded Balenciaga wellington boots and cut in ‘Balenciaga black’ - serving as a dominating force.

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In the notes which accompanied a showcase which included everything from priests robes to football strips and Eighties power tailoring, Balenciaga said the collection was about “inverting the values of certain dress codes'". “Sport, religion, obsession and seduction are stripped of their functions, leaving only the sensation of a fashion object.”

This was familiar ground of Gvasalia who takes great joy in elevating the ordinary and indeed has breathed new life into the Balenciaga house by doing precisely that.

The Balenciaga FC football strip will inevitably emerge as a high fashion must have next season. A series of motocross leathers served as further evidence of this idea. The designer also continued to demonstrate his aptitude for the extreme silhouettes on which the Balenciaga brand depends with peak-shouldered jackets, side skimming scuba suits and his signature super sized cuffs among the takeaway items. A Balenciaga-branded holdall bag and the house’s new take on the iphone case were also unveiled on the catwalk.

What all of this has to do with the climate crisis is unclear. But today’s show, with its luxury phone cases and high-price rubber boots soon to be betrothed by the street style crowd, served as a timely reminder that fashion, and the evangelical consumerism that underpins it, is a major part of the problem.

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