Balenciaga’s 54th Couture Collection is a full-circle farewell. For Demna, this offering closes a transformative decade at the house with a work of rare emotional clarity and rigorous construction. Rather than staging a theatrical departure, the designer opts for quiet conviction: sculptural tailoring, anatomical cuts, and whispered nods to the past, all filtered through a deeply personal lens.
COUTURE COLLECTIONS
Photographed across Paris, the city where Demna’s fashion journey began, the collection finds its footing in La Bourgeoisie. The codes are dissected and reassembled: tulip lapels stand like armor around the face, while Medici collars stretch into theatrical silhouettes reminiscent of Nosferatu. Yet there is softness beneath the surface. Corsetry is reengineered for ease, creating hourglass forms that don’t constrain but cradle. In a house famed for architectural volume, Demna introduces a new softness, one that refuses discomfort.
The wardrobe expands beyond the ballroom. A technical silk bomber becomes an unlikely couture artifact, and a summer taffeta blouson transforms “business” into air. A car coat floats, while a seamless puffer coat and a vicuña-cashmere maxi bring streetwear structure into the rarefied space of haute couture. Corduroy, no longer cloth, becomes illusion, painstakingly embroidered with 300 kilometers of thread in a trompe-l’œil that evokes the first pair of trousers Demna ever wanted to wear.
Archival references are woven subtly, sometimes subconsciously. The Danielle suit recalls a 1967 houndstooth look worn with unmistakable Balenciaga authority. A 1957 floral motif appears not on an evening gown but a sequined skirt suit and handbag, an homage, Demna says, to his grandmother’s kitchen tablecloth. Sentimentality and sharpness coexist here in one of the collection’s most arresting moments.
Hollywood glamour, another persistent fixation, takes form in gowns that echo Monroe, Taylor, and the silhouettes of an era now softened by distance. The black sequined “Diva” dress, the impossibly light pink organza “Debutante,” and a seamless Guipure lace finale worn by Eliza each mark a different register of reverence. Kim Kardashian wears a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor,a feather-embroidered “mink” coat over a silk slip, finished with Taylor’s own diamond earrings. It’s not camp, it’s mythmaking.
Tailoring, developed with Neapolitan ateliers, turns the made-to-measure formula inside out. Nine “one-size-fits-all” suits are fit on a bodybuilder, then modeled across diverse bodies. Here, Demna flips the traditional logic: the body defines the garment, not the reverse.
Jewelry by Lorraine Schwartz, over 1,000 carats of custom-cut stones, elevates the couture gravity. Handbags drop logos in favor of personal names. A sneaker, Balenciaga’s first for couture, is crafted with the precision of a dress shoe. Flower brooches are made from discarded tissue paper and silk, upcycled by Maison Lemarié and William Amor into couture artifacts. Even the briefcase gets reimagined, as a laptop jewelry case.
The soundtrack? A simple roll call of the team behind the scenes. No overture, no crescendo, just names, human voices, presence.
In a decade defined by noise, Demna closes with silence. Precise, poetic, and final.
