Introducing the Balenciaga scrunchie. And why not? This end-of-year collection is an apposite juncture at which to appreciate the workings of Demna Gvasalia’s sense of humor. At a preview in Paris last June, it was laid out for inspection in trays as this Resort lookbook was being shot. Would you like to wear a couple of bunches of plastic grapes as earrings, with another, perhaps, as a dangly ring? Maybe the exaggerated button earrings will appeal—literally, a pair of magnified vintage Balenciaga double-B logo buttons, that is? Or possibly, some of the office supply elastic bands or fridge magnet letters that have become involved in the jewelry?
At times like this, when we’d all cry unless we laughed, Balenciaga’s absurdist accessories are perfectly timed. The jokes gleefully spark up the otherwise straight-faced continuity of the clothes, in which Gvasalia and his team have gone back to build on some of the foundations he’s laid down since placing an outsize Balenciaga logo on a stole in the first collection for Pre-Fall 2016. Designers need to normalize their own innovations and make them available to be bought over time. Thus, the reiterations of the pantaboots—fused leggings and stilettos—that have been a surprise runaway seller since they first appeared in the Fetish collection of Spring 2017, the car mat–inspired pencil skirt of Fall 2017, the Helly Hansen–inspired padded coats of Fall 2016, and the flower-print blouses and dresses he’s revived all along.
But back to the beginning, and that Balenciaga stole—the perfectly calculated Insta-influencer viral billboard-teaser Gvasalia put out before his first runway show at the house. In effect, it was a preview of one of the things Gvasalia has pursued intently: his interest in logos and how they can be manipulated, retrieved from a brand-licensing past that was once regarded as beyond the pale of sophisticated taste, and then doused in the gasoline of ridiculous desirability again.
On a deeper level, there’s a slyly intelligent debate about fake-versus-real implicit in his scheming. (E.g.: The airport shop souvenir–inspired New York, London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong bags can be bought as, well, souvenirs only in those cities). There are Balenciaga logos all over the place now. One of them is a diagonal print lifted from vintage linings that is now stamped on quilted, chain-handled lady bags, which in themselves might be copies of the faked-up branded merchandise that was churned out in the name of the house in the ’70s and ’80s. That same reappropriated print now appears on Balenciaga carpets in shows and in stores—part of the corporate sub-theme Gvasalia is also manipulating. Contemporary fashion relishes irony when it sees it. And if it doesn’t, well, it’s arrived at a state where it jumps at logos willy-nilly, anyway.
Gvasalia is a top expert at re-chic-ing the mundane. There’s a difference between catching a trend and playing to the crowd of mass popularity for fun and profit (the logomania revival is of course endemic, now) and being able to put the stamp of a total look on a time. Gvasalia has done the latter thing: His silhouettes, even the slope-shouldered stance and the “real” look of the models, are much imitated high and low throughout fashion. The copier, copied. It’s one of the funniest things about fashion today.
