Too many strange things about Balenciaga’s catwalk in Paris: the inflatable puffer jackets, swelled high above the shoulders to give models the silhouette of Gru from Despicable Me. There are traces of subtle meanings layered into what Gvasalia does- a visual joke of those inflatable jackets, for instance, this is a reference to the cocoon-shaped taffeta evening coats in which Cristobal Balenciaga was dressing his clients 75 years ago– but weirdness is the overpowering top note.
The show opened with a silver-haired woman, credited in the show notes as “Neda Brady, an architect”, wearing a black trouser suit. The trousers were too big, held up by a basic-looking black belt, and too long as if the wearer hadn’t got round to taking them up, so they bunched around her ankles. She wore her spectacles, but no makeup or any accessories beyond an office pass on a lanyard. A good look at her departing back view revealed that the jacket wasn’t merely oversized, but had a shoulder line exaggerated by internal boning.
Some of the clothes were shocking in their ordinariness. The palette might best be described as “commuter train”: dull black and grey studded with brash, Angela Merkel-brights. Men wore zippered nylon jackets with trousers as if heading home from a shift. The casting mixed high-fashion favourites from past and present with ordinary people, so that “Tobias Mehlmann, a mechanical engineer” was followed by “Bella Hadid, a model”.
There was nothing ordinary about the vast bell-shaped ballgowns in crushed velvet or pleated lurex, which gave the models the larger-than-life silhouette where they looked a little like football mascots in padded costume.
Gru-like silhouettes & inflatable puffer jackets dominated Balenciaga’s catwalk in Paris.
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