All clothes and accessories by Balenciaga; Saks Fifth Avenue, NYC. Maybe not. Via Flickr Victoria and Albert Museum Cristóbal Balenciaga Collection Charcoal-black hair, black patent platforms: When I walk with her on the street, it’s quite an experience—everybody stares.”. There’s a metal desk and a large blown-up black-and-white photograph of Cristóbal Balenciaga propped up against a wall, and that’s about it. “We worked in huge teams,” Gvasalia says. “But I’m trying to understand how he saw women.”. Demna Gvasalia Is Launching Balenciaga’s Apple Music Collboration With a 13-Hour Playlist. “It started with me and two others,” Gvasalia says. Shop our selection of authentic Balenciaga womenswear below. A picture of an elderly lady, possibly an Eastern European granny, wearing a polka-dot catering apron was pinned to a board next to Balenciaga-archive pictures of fifties models in ball gowns with swathed necklines. It’s part of me.” This morning, he says, he got himself going with “some Gainsbourg, then some metal.” He laughs. Molly Goddard’s has improved on the styles giving modernized styles. Any woman could wear Colette’s clothes—one of those tricks of proportion—and she inspired Balenciaga to make his best.”, We head downstairs, to where his team is prepping the resort-collection lookbook. “I am here two and a half days, and at Vetements two and a half,” he says firmly. Gvasalia’s office is brand-spanking-new. At one point, Volkova leaned over and waved another idea for outerwear at him: a Soviet army jacket she’s snapped on her phone. The Importance of Shoes for Balenciaga retail strategy. SHOP: Balenciaga . They are his people, and the phenomenon he’s spearheaded has moved at a speed akin to the Internet-fueled emergence of populist political leaders. Watch the Balenciaga Fall 2016 ready-to-wear show: “Vetements is like Parliament,” Gvasalia says, laughing. I’d love to know, but I don’t!”. Mr. Gvasalia will continue in his role as head designer of Vetements while artistic director of Balenciaga. He aims to make the brand a billion-euro company. Balenciaga is a French fashion house. Of particular note are Nicolas Ghesquière – widely credited for reviving the label from 1997 to 2012 – and Demna Gvasalia, the current Creative Director who ensures the name Balenciaga is on everybody's lips today. “I felt like Daniel Craig. What’s for sure is that it’s instilled a bond between the brothers, an impressive degree of practical and intelligent fearlessness about business, a dauntless professional and creative work ethic, and—in Demna’s case, anyway—a carpe diem drive to surround himself with people he likes. Shop top categories and styles: Gvasalia can be hilarious, but the reason his extended family ended up in Düsseldorf rather than their native Georgia is far from funny. “She’s 75, always wears high heels, even at home. “The person who was in charge always asked everybody—and the model—for input, and I thought, Well, that really speaks to me. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Balenciaga went on designing iconic dresses and dressing glamorous women until 1968, when his fashion house closed the doors for the last time. Models (from far left) Lineisy Montero, Joan Smalls, Isabeli Fontana, and Rianne Van Rompaey. “I wouldn’t say I’m trying to channel Mr. Balenciaga in any way,” Gvasalia begins, almost cringing at the notion. In the elevator, Gvasalia tells me that his collaborative way of doing things goes back to his student days at the Royal Academy. “I always have to have music the minute I wake up. She went on to describe “the greatest monster of them all,” a model named Colette, as “walking with her Dracula walk, her big head low like a bull ready to charge, her shoulders hunched down, her arms swinging low, and a look of almost violent hatred on her face. “I was never on the list. There’s an almost ceremonial air about the room: By nature, Gvasalia is never going to be the isolated designer-visionary flinging out sketches and inspirations from behind closed doors. A deep chuckle. Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. There is no doubt about the reverence to — or the relevance of — Balenciaga for the current Spanish fashion generation. He lived in a tiny shared studio in the Rue de Charonne, in the Eleventh Arrondissement—the funky, culturally mixed area packed with young people that later was the site of the shootings and bombings of November 2015. the brand company s.p.a. Kering group nation France founder Cristobal Balenciaga foundation year 1919 original location headquarter San Sebastian, Spain … Balenciaga is far from being the only luxury brand to cause a stir among Chinese social media users. A plot grew out of his frustrated conversations with friends, which soon devolved into after-hours experiments with them, chopping up and refitting clothes in his bedroom. “She would look at your work, pause, and then say, ‘Do you know anyone who wants to wear that?’ My destiny was formed by her.”, Her influence was compounded by his experience at Margiela in Paris. Gvasalia apologizes for his personality-free office. He gleefully recounts a defining moment while fitting the opening look for his first Balenciaga show on 31-year-old New York artist Eliza Douglas, another member of the extended Vetements family. Instead, Demna researched fashion schools, saw that the Royal Academy’s fees were the lowest, and escaped there to study. He was one of the few designers who did not sketch his idea, but started with the fabric itself. “He liked to work with reality, and flatter it. The current designer for Balenciaga is Demna Gvasalia, after taking the helm from Alexander Wang. “Everybody’s very outspoken and not afraid of sharing their opinion in a very brutal way. It was scary.” His brother was too young to understand much about it but matter-of-factly narrates what he remembers. Chitose Abe, designer of Sacai, was at one time thought to be the front-runner, but today it was announced that Demna Gvasalia, head designer of Vêtements (it literally means "clothes" in French), got the gig. Escudie thinks so: “Demna is so open to the world and to people,” she says. Well, though fashion can often exist within a vacuum, step inside it for a moment and you'll see that Vêtements is currently the hottest label in the game. We walk into an astonishing soaring, high-vaulted cruciform space nearly the size of a cathedral. At Balenciaga, it’s been upgraded and fused with archival florals, which blossom over total looks—high boots and all. The Balenciaga name has been revived in recent years by hot designer Nicolas Ghesquière, who draws heavily on the archives. Cristóbal Balenciaga, (born Jan. 21, 1895, Guetaria, Spain—died March 23, 1972, Valencia), Spanish dress designer who created elegant ball gowns and other classic designs.. Balenciaga began seriously studying dressmaking at the age of 10, when the death of his father, a sea captain, made it necessary for his mother to support the family by sewing. Giannini continues to design from heritage. (One of the first things Gvasalia did at the house was to exaggerate Balenciaga branding on a few accessible items—if anyone understands how to kindle a cult following, it’s him.) He graduated in 2001, the last class under the tutelage of the legendary Linda Loppa, who had taught the so-called Antwerp Six. It is Gvasalia’s blending of draping and streetwear that has kept the brand as popular and beloved as when Balenciaga … Once an underground designer, Gvasalia managed to breathe new life into Balenciaga, and contributed to its current success. Gvasalia asked her what she thought of the tailored skirt suit with rolled-forward shoulder line and padded hip. Gvaslia and Tisci innately follow the lines that Balenciaga and Givenchy used to set their houses apart in the fashion world. It’s funny to think that the beauty aesthetics now being smuggled into Balenciaga are likely to have been sprung from Berlin bars and nightclubs, suburban Paris raves, and firsthand memories of life behind the Iron Curtain. “I’m strict about keeping the weekends free, except at showtime.” Ironically, it’s 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning as he’s asserting this, and there’s a long day of work on the resort collection ahead. “The way we work is that we have these garments, and there’s a lot of destroying and cutting them up to create something new,” Gvasalia explained. “We had a couple of Kalashnikovs with us—my mother sold one to buy a horse because my grandmother couldn’t walk. While the design of those shoes is iconic, and seeing it anywhere you'd immediately know the brand, that does not seem to be the case for all of Balenciaga's designs. Everything is black and long to the floor, and she customizes her clothes—she makes them longer with lace—and wears silver jewelry. Memories from Gvasalia’s complicated background are continually woven into his collections, and the more you realize it, the more remarkable he becomes. On December 5, 2016, Demna Gvasalia won the International Ready-To-Wear Designer award at The Fashion Awards. When my taxi pulled up to the new Balenciaga headquarters so I could watch Gvasalia at work, the driver almost refused to believe I had the right address. “From Russia with love!” she crooned. I’m trying to work with that.”, Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s creative director—another designer in the Kering Group who worked for years behind the scenes—sat front row at Gvasalia’s Balenciaga debut. “By then it was known there was going to be a change of creative direction—people were already gossiping about who it was going to be,” says Gvasalia. As well as running together, they all walk for Vetements—and live on Instagram. Gvasalia’s deeply embedded circle of friends includes Clara Deshayes, who DJs under the name Clara 3000; the Russian stylist Lotta Volkova; Paul Hameline, who got to know Gvasalia through throwing parties; model Maud Escudie; and Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy. It was like a Bond movie!” Still wearing a slightly incredulous expression, Demna Gvasalia is describing his ride to meet François-Henri Pinault, CEO and chairman of the Kering conglomerate, on the day he was invited to discuss the artistic directorship at Balenciaga. “In one night we went to four or five clubs. To put the wildfire spread of the influence of Vetements’ floral tea dresses, lopsided hoodies, widened shoulders, and dangling sleeves in perspective, the label did not even exist when the last incumbent at Balenciaga, Alexander Wang, was hired as creative director in 2012. Were these not the very pair that forged the Balenciaga silhouette for fall 2016? “When we moved here, they asked me if I wanted something special in the office. He liked to fit on models who were not perfect,” he says. Balenciaga’s New Designer Is the Coolest Man in Fashion Right Now. It’s someone who dresses to say something—to belong to a group of people. Although the design was met with hostility at the time, the world would eventually catch up with Balenciaga’s vision and the Sack Dress became a seminal piece of 1960s fashion and is regarded as a staple today. “There were so many people queuing outside in the street,” he says, “it was like Star Wars!” In London, the situation was repeated outside Dover Street Market. In that large area is the work of current or past designers who have been influenced by Balenciaga, which creates a second chapter of the curator’s story. Overall, Balenciaga is still a well-known and respected fashion house, but isn’t necessarily quite as well known by the average retail customer. “Starting with Serge Gainsbourg in the morning is probably more Balenciaga. Its cartoonishly oversize jackets and paneled jeans, which will set you back in the several thousands, have both been coveted with the feverishness normally reserved for limited-edition sneakers. © 2021 Condé Nast. A keen eye for design and a strong ability to set trends is what the house of Balenciaga has always been known for. Wang left Balenciaga in 2015, making way for fashion's current enfant terrible Demna Gvasalia to take the lead at the storied fashion house. He could make … “She said, ‘I feel like I should be on the Forbes list.’ And I was like, ‘Voilà!’. It was always clear that when the time came, Guram was going to be backing up his brother. Still, why did Kering take the risk of co-opting an underground guy to the storied luxury house when Wang returned to concentrating on his namesake label in New York in 2015? GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. In a new interview with WWD, Demna Gvasalia leaves no stone unturned. What are synonyms for Balenciaga? His bubble skirts and odd, feminine, yet "modernistic" silhouettes became the trademarks of the house. Early in the evening Volkova cranks up the music. Sneakers at up who is the current designer for balenciaga 90 % off and not afraid of sharing their in... Opinion in a new interview with WWD, Demna Gvasalia won who is the current designer for balenciaga International Ready-To-Wear designer award the. S Apple music Collboration with a 13-Hour Playlist Some mornings, I ’ m trying to much. “ Some mornings, I ’ d love to know, but started with me two! 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