The term “winter” takes on a new meaning. Balenciaga presented its Fall Winter 2022-23, “360° Show” at Paris Le Bourget Parc d’Expositions during the Paris Fashion Week on March 6, 2022. Set behind the circular glass wall, the models were walking through the manufactured snowstorm, referencing the climate crisis and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
FALL WINTER 2022.23 COLLECTIONS
A refuge himself, Demna fled Georgia as a 12-year-old during that country’s civil war. When the war in Ukraine started, he was seriously thinking of canceling the show, but instead he decided to pay tribute to Ukraine and support the people leaving the country running away from the war.
The war had triggered the pain of a past trauma I have carried in me since 1993, when the same thing happened in my country and I became a forever refugee. Forever, because that’s something that stays with you. The fear, the desperation, the realization that no one wants you.
Balenciaga Winter 22 is presented on an infinite white field, encapsulated with a protective glass screen. In this real-life 3-D live stream with a 360° view, we observe the idea of a season as we once knew it. Just as a souvenir snow globe preserves a memory, the impending present plays out within a manufactured storm, mapping past winters onto the next. – says the press release.