The Balenciaga show was soundtracked by a guided meditation . “In today’s session we will learn a pathway towards a happier life,” it began. We were encouraged to slow our breathing, to picture a colour we associate with happiness, imagine that colour as a cloud, and “feel the fresh air and all the positive energies coming in.
” The guide reminded us that joy is a state of being we can cultivate, through empathy and compassion, and the release of negative thoughts. It was not all that different from the meditation Demna listens to daily; he does it, he explained, “to find this kind of Bluetooth within myself to my creativity.” This was the Balenciaga creative director’s fourth haute couture collection, and his most subversive in its rejection of the formality and fineries typical of the metier, if not Cristóbal Balenciaga’s silhouettes.
Demna took up the couturier’s 3/4-length sleeves, cocoon shapes, and elaborate headwear, only instead of the gazar and other fabrics that Balenciaga relied on, he turned to the materials of his own practice these last 10 years: denim, leather, track suits and technical outerwear, and the hoodie, bien sûr , bonding them to a satin scuba material that helped him achieve his sculpted forms. “I wanted to create a fusion or a tribute to my personal vocabulary as a designer, which is subcultures..
. but I needed to bring in that kind of equilibrium with Cristóbal, obviously, because this is couture,” he said. The first ma.
