What Is Balenciaga After Peeling Off The Tidal Current And Bursting Effect?

How high a luxury brand can climb often depends on whether a new problem can be found earlier than a competitor.

Balenciaga of the group of Paris, released by cloud group, released its 2019 autumn winter clothing series last Sunday.

If the 2019 spring and summer series released in the last year's immersive LED screen show, with a series of futuristic and well tailored suits, the industry began to reconsider the brand that has been making topics for three years. Then the latest fashion show conveys a clearer message to the outside world, that is, the creative director Demna Gvasalia's Balenciaga is peeling the skin of the trend and explosive effect, leading to the commercial nature of the fashion house.

The black stage is accompanied by the flashing lights, the latest fashion fragments caught in the light gap, the dry working people in the western style dress, the reflective leather jacket and the sunglasses, the hippies with the brand logo shopping bags in their hands, the young people who are enjoying the night life in Paris on the T stage in the bright and the down coats or their dresses, and the diversified model choices that cover the different age groups and races. As well as the silhouette collection of all kinds of life scenes in Paris, the whole show seems closer to the real Paris city life.

The brand says that leisure and mashup dress modeling has become a major indicator of modern Parisian dressing styles.

In addition to ready-made clothes, handbags have become the highlight of Balenciaga's great show. Demna Gvasalia simply put the controversial shopping bag as the main theme of the series, not only with more patterns, but also environmental bags and handbags with hot water bags.

The bottom of the other handbag is arched. The hasp is a capitalized letter B, which indicates that the brand is beginning to identify the handbag.

In fact, Demna Gvasalia revealed in a rare interview a week ago that the latest series is his special feelings for Paris.

"Routine" is still a prominent feature of Balenciaga in the hands of Demna Gvasalia.

Demna Gvasalia's practice of deconstructing and reorganizing everyday clothes is known as "Readymade" by the industry. "I really draw inspiration from everyday consumer goods, but I am not a pioneer. This practice can be traced back to the French artist Marcel Duchamp, which is the precursor of making ordinary goods into art display."

As the number one fan of Marcel Duchamp, Demna Gvasalia said that "Readymade" has the same effect with the later "Readywear". The founder of Cristobal Balenciaga is drawing inspiration from daily life and gradually moving towards advanced customization.

Demna Gvasalia takes its recent "Cristobal" short dress inspired by the Spanish Village fishermen as an example. "This is a poor man's uniform but has become a brand symbol. Now I use the way that contemporary consumers can understand and accept to pform the classic design," Demna said.

Apart from "Vareuse", the Cristobal Balenciaga, which is tailored and tailored, also creates classic products such as cocoon coat, bubble skirt and half fitted jacket. The structure is always maintained between the width and the fit of the garment, while it is comfortable while it also highlights the figure.

"The work left by Cristobal Balenciaga is a gift for me, and his profile is very inspiring to me."

But don't think that Demna Gvasalia is the designer who persuades consumers to pay for Vetements by moving ordinary clothes onto T and trying to confuse luxury with street and fashion clothes.

Consumers have already seen this logic, and Demna Gvasalia has already moved on.

Now it seems that Demna Gvasalia treats its work in Balenciaga more seriously than people think.

He spent most of his efforts in Balenciaga, though it was at the cost of the fall of his own brand Vetements.

In the latest 2019 autumn and winter series, people can clearly see the Demna Gvasalia's exploration of fashion profile and collar design, and the outline is Cristobal Balenciaga as the DNA left behind by the brand.

The opening of a series of suits modeling for the first time launched a special slight shrug design.

In the latter series, a black humorous shoulder profile and a complicated circular shoulder outline appeared on the other side.

Although commentators have pointed out that this circular profile has largely drawn on the design of Charles Worth, the father of advanced customization, but Demna Gvasalia put the whole series in the context of contemporary and future. It is a breakthrough to apply the profile of advanced custom dress to outdoor materials.

Many attempts have made the whole series of fashion evidently improved, and it seems that Balenciaga has begun to think about the depth of the brand after the heat of the explosion.

Time goes back to 2016.

Demna Gvasalia was invited to join Balenciaga after one year of Vetements creation.

The original CEO and chief executive, Isabelle Guichot, commented on the appointment. The brand wanted to hire a talented person with vision and reorganization ability. Demna Gvasalia obviously had such ability. He had a clear understanding of brand attitude, product and market.

Vetements is at the heart of fashion democratization, and the new Balenciaga that comes with its style has taken advantage of many trends to become a frequent visitor in street shooting.

Amid the hustle and bustle of the clampdown, the market's doubts about Demna Gvasalia gradually fade away.

This is a common occurrence in the fashion industry. At first, people protested the innovation of the new creative director, but soon people began to get used to it.

Demna Gvasalia has really injected new vitality into Balenciaga, especially the Tirple S shoes.

Among the 2018 fashion lists announced by LYST, the global fashion search engine, the old shoes, including Triple S, have once again become the best-selling explosive products.

However, the continuous explosion of funds also set off a trend of reference. "They not only misappropriated my creative ideas, but rather directly copied them," Demna Gvasalia said in an interview.

When it comes to the design concept of Triple S, Demna Gvasalia pointed out that the Balenciaga management initially thought this thick bottom and dirty shoes were ugly, and he was skeptical. But he thought that the thick bottom could lengthen the proportion of the person wearing, and looked more stable and more masculine. "I really don't like ugly things," Demna Gvasalia emphasized.

Interestingly, the trend of daddy shoes is popular with ugly labels.

Whether Demna Gvasalia is willing to admit it, he has contributed to the ongoing aesthetic trend of "ugliness for beauty", which is closely related to his background as an emigration and his background influenced by deconstruction.

Demna Gvasalia grew up in Georgia and Germany, studied fashion design in Antwerp, Belgium, and worked with men's designers and avant-garde Six Gentlemen of Antwerp Walter van Beirendonck, then joined Maison Martin Margiela, where she was deeply influenced by deconstruction, and worked in Louis Vuitton and Marc Marc.

After accumulating a certain amount of experience and vision, Demna Gvasalia gradually formed its own unique view of fashion. Its personal brand Vetements was founded in 2014 with her brother Guram Gvasalia. It was rapidly booming through a DHL T-shirt. Its long sleeves, wide Dalian hoodies and half edge coats were all controversial, but they were also hard to find.

Demna Gvasalia said the inspiration for its brand creation also came from Japanese designer Wakubo Rei, and stressed that clothing must first be guided by business.

There is an analysis that Vetements contains personal ambitions of Demna Gvasalia. Its purpose is not to create truly beautiful fashions, but to resist a stagnant luxury industry. "Vetements is like a luxury joke."

In this regard, Demna Gvasalia explains in particular, "DHL T-shirt is a joke, but I never joke about it in the process of creation, but I take it seriously."

In fact, Demna Gvasalia projected its personal experience in many seemingly unconventional designs.

For example, the blue Balenciaga Frakta shopping bag with a price of $2145 from the former Balenciaga was derived from the $1 IKEA shopping bag he liked when he was a student at Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. At that time, he also liked the IKEA yellow shopping bag but was unable to own it because it was not for sale. For this reason, Demna Gvasalia specially designed a yellow leather version of the Frakta shopping bag.

In recent years, Balenciaga's oversize suit and coat have also been regarded as the representative work of Demna Gvasalia.

According to his introduction, in his childhood, because his family condition was not good, he could only share his clothes with his cousin, who was 5 or 6 years old. "There is a big difference between the shirt designed by me and other similar shirts, because I have integrated my attitude in this super size. When I make clothes, there will be different research and reflection behind the product. This is the real secret of my success."

From the thick old man shoes and the oversized suit jacket to the high priced shopping bag, Demna Gvasalia seems to have been breaking the impression that people are impressed with high fashion. His creative production process has also changed the habits of the industry. He said that the way of work is no longer monopolistic but teamwork.

The main source of inspiration comes from the Internet or what he wears in his daily life. He also has a special image manufacturing team.

But in his eyes, he does not consider himself a destroyer. "I never compromise on the reputation of a fashion series, such as to cater for what others call" correctness ".

It is noteworthy that the official account of Balenciaga Instagram has also created a new form of brand management social media account.

Unlike luxury brands, social media accounts are used as marketing platforms to release product images and promotional videos. Balenciaga's Instagram account has abandoned all official output brand content, but a product of a personal view taken by a person. It shows a community around Balenciaga and a lifestyle that is not overly modified. This is unique among many luxury brands, and it can also arouse consumers' sympathy.

Demna Gvasalia responds that sometimes a person who has never actually taken a camera will take a better picture than a professional photographer.

"I hope that Balenciaga's account does not look like a brand Instagram, or is too official, but rather like personal Instagram, showing the lifestyle of the brand target audience, gradually forming a community, not a promotion platform."

With the development of Demna Gvasalia and team, Balenciaga's popularity in social media has been increasing. The number of Instagram official account fans has soared to nearly 9 million from 1 million 200 thousand in 2015.

He also admits that he is trying to tell stories in the show, rather than in the past, through some gimmicks designed to arouse discussion and enhance the voice of his products in social media. "If I am not making clothes, I may make films."

Storytelling is very important, but not necessarily through oral expression. Demna Gvasalia is convinced of this.

Last July, Vetements released the 2019 spring summer series under a viaduct in Paris, and Demna Gvasalia explored the memory of Georgia in this way.

During this January men's show, he also took the Internet as a theme to explore the danger of losing personal privacy.

Demna Gvasalia also mentioned in the interview that in 2017, he had asked 150 female models to wait for three hours in the dark staircase. He admitted that he was lack of experience for the big brands. After learning the lesson, Balenciaga invited professional models and brands to walk along with the famous people from all parts of the world. Both men and women were young and old. "The future of luxury fashion is about inclusiveness. Besides clothing products, consumers value the values that a brand supports and promotes. My real pursuit in Balenciaga is to create a modern luxury brand with package capacity, which is sustainable and avant-garde, because this is its DNA."

In order to better highlight its importance for sustainable development, Demna Gvasalia, in collaboration with the world's largest humanitarian aid organization, World Food Programme WFP in the fall 2018 series, has launched baseball caps, T-Shirts, sportswear and waist bags with the logo of the world, and donated 10% of the items. He hoped that Balenciaga's clothing could become a communication tool and be able to participate in social activities.

Balenciaga also recently launched a capsule series with Farfetch to show support for species protection.

Unlike Vetements's initial rebellious stance, the image of Balenciaga under the shadow of luxury group's Kai Yun group seems to have been more thoughtful, which naturally comes from the group's high expectations for the brand.

It is noteworthy that the Balenciaga 2019 autumn winter series is the first large-scale production of Demna Gvasalia, and a total of 109 products will be sold in advance within 6 months.

Demna Gvasalia says that the traditional concept of luxury is out of date. Now consumers are tired of fashion week every three months, creative people are becoming more and more crazy, and people who are responsible for operating brands do not know what products are, which is a big problem in the industry.

"I realized that I could not continue to do so because it was disrespectful to the creative process and to those who wanted to turn ideas into reliable products."

After taking office, Demna Gvasalia put forward a proposal to organize two fashion shows for Balenciaga in one year. One is winter clothes and spring clothes, the other is summer wear and autumn wear. The combination of men's and women's clothing is released together, which is more in line with the weather pattern and more suitable for the lifestyle and shopping habits of modern consumers.

Demna Gvasalia revealed that in the future, he will add more classic products and more exquisite fashion styles in the Balenciaga series, such as the exquisite cashmere sweater that his father can wear, and will continue to explore more tailoring and try different styles of evening dress to make the brand more inclusive so as to meet the needs of more people.

This also seems to mean that the target audience of Balenciaga is returning from the millennial generation who advocates street style to the stronger economic middle class.

Coincidentally, Fashion Critic Vanessa Friedman said in the New York Times's latest show commentary that from the Riccardo Tisci's Burberry and Hedi Slimane to the second Celine series inspired by 1970s, so that Altuzarra, Comme DES, and Hermes, the luxury brands finally stopped blindly pursuing the pace of the millennial generation and generation, and began to seek a balance between the trend and the aesthetic appreciation of the middle class.

Some analysts point out that although the foundation of luxury brands is based on "dream making", in the rapidly changing fashion industry, consumers begin to look at this concept in a more rational way. They are approachable and meet the needs of life to become new pursuits. This means that every brand has to work harder in competition, forcing the creative director to learn how to fight and design.

Today, Demna Gvasalia takes over the creative power of Balenciaga for over three years, and the whole brand is constantly exerting its strength from design, management and sales level.

Although Kai Yun group has never disclosed the specific data of Balenciaga, close to internal sources revealed that the brand has become one of the fastest growing brands in Kai Yun group except Gucci, and sales growth has more than doubled since Demna Gvasalia took office.

Fran ois-Henri Pinault, chairman and chief executive of the group, predicted that the sales volume of the brand will exceed 1 billion euros this year after a full year 2018 conference call.

When the explosive money starts to cool down, one may be that the brand is falling down with the enthusiasm of the public, and the other may be brewing in a sober way into the next rising period.

Balenciaga is probably the latter.