“As you know, I like to question things that matter to me through my work, and some of the questions I have been thinking about recently are: what is luxury? What is fashion and why does it even matter? Who do I di what I do for? Is fashion enough? In a world oversaturated by content, is anything ever enough? What is enough? The important part is not necessarily finding answers, but the process of questioning in itself.” – Demna.
How many times have you heard the phrase “£695 for a bath towel?! they must be joking”? Balenciaga sure knows how to anger people. Upon hearing about these new products, I roll my eyes and shake my head with a big smile thinking, “they’ve really done it this time.” However their products are more than a publicity stunt, there is a deeper message to this.
When analysing Demna’s Balenciaga there is one phrase that summarises the experience of the world he and his team have created: reaction, intention, reflection.
When seeing a bath towel being part of a luxury brand’s latest collection, it is most likely that you’ll have quite an extreme reaction. It would be very unlikely that you’ll have no reaction whatsoever. This takes us to intention. It is obvious that Demna knows what he is doing when designing these products. He is, after all, the creative director of one of the largest and well respected fashion houses in the world. It is very clear he is trying to illicit a reaction out of the viewer.
Then comes reflection. Understand what we feel when we look at these products leads us to question the idea of luxury, as well as the alienation and absurdity of the industry. It is through these surreal products that the veil gets lifted over our eyes, something that a standard luxury bag couldn’t do, as it is ingrained and understood in the collective conscious as luxury.
Essentially what Demna is doing is something that goes against every instinct for a creative director, breaking the illusion of the fantasy world of luxury and forcing us to question the ideologies that have been cultivating for decades. Is it absurd to sell a bath towel for £695? Yes. But sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
References
Winter 24. (n.d.). http://Www.balenciaga.com. Retrieved May 6, 2024, from https://www.balenciaga.com/en-gb/searchcontent?fdid=winter-24-collection
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