The dramatic shift of Demna Gvasalia’s aesthetics for the house he totally remade

Demna Gvasalia sure knows how to surprise. He has created a new product category for Balenciaga and he was proud to show them. At the brand’s spring/summer 2025 show, Mr Gvasalit revealed underwear—fashion at its most basal or, as some might say, primal. But they were not what you would really find at Princess tam.tam, and definitely not at Uniqlo. These were for prolific Only Fans content creators or the few adventurous brides on their wedding nights. In fact, we were not sure if we were watching a Dolce & Gabbana show or a Victoria’s Secret presentation. Without sounding prudish, it was not immediately clear to us how lingerie and hosiery, while unexpected on a Balenciaga runway so far, could invigorate a brand that has become somewhat predictable. Or bring in more customers who may have not cared for their extreme silhouettes or new rags previously. Is Mr Gvasalia not enough an agent provocateur?

Surprise gave way to dismay. While underclothes can be synonymous with fashion, we expected more from Balenciaga. Titillation, it appeared to us, was the objective when the first seven looks (and more later) were based on inner-as-outer-wear, technically bodysuits manipulated to look like lingerie. The first model, styled to look like Courtney Love on a bad day, ambled somewhat jerkily on the elevated wood runway that was 47-metre long, which purportedly represented the dining table on which little Demna Gvasalia used to draw, design and made paper dolls as a young boy. But now, he has made it his tok panjang, to better underscore his extreme designs, to pile on the results of the labour of the studio. He had regaled the media after the show with recounts of what it was like for him as an adolescent, aspiring designer, and how the clothes, especially this season, were really about him and his taste, and his growing up. For some reason, that has been the trope running through PFW this season: childhood dreams. Olivier Routeing at Balmain similarly spoke of his very young days and how his experiences influenced the current Balmain collection, even saying to WWD that it possessed “my DNA”.

There is no denying that the Demna Gvasalia DNA is deeply entrenched in Balenciaga. We do not begrudge him for it. It has been fascinating with what he proposed for the house, but while it was sheer technical feats in sublime forms in the past, it has been more and more the visual aberration of off-kilter urban tribes or how much more can be piled on the body (regardless of season) to yield ungainly silhouettes, or, presently, the exhibitionism of those whose scanty dressing are considerable income streams. The world is, of course, big enough. Mr Gvasalia can be attracted to the salacious as much as he can be drawn to the seedy. And they have become his language for Balenciaga. The deliberately sleaze-pop posturing was, appropriately enough, augmented by the soundtrack of Britney Spears’s 2007 hit Gimme More (majorly remixed, of course, by BFRND) that was accompanied by a music video in which Ms Spears played a twerking, pole-dancing stripper.

We are inclined to believe that Mr Gvasalia has been influenced by America, where Balenciaga has a sizeable fan base, including the leader of her tribe Kim Kardashian and scores of Kanye West fans. And now, Lindsay Lohan! This was more apparent after his fall 2024 collection shown in Los Angeles, where Mr Gvasalia totally embraced the West Coast’s laid-back, borderline-cheesy looks. Sure, Mr Gvasalia has always been fascinated with the US. His love of or collaboration with Crocs, Erewhon Supermarket, Juicy Couture, Lays Potato Chips, The Simpsons, or Under Armour were evidence enough. Balenciaga’s CEO, Cédric Charbit, told WWD last year that the US market is important to the brand’s future and that it’s vital to consider “the role played by the United States in particular in redefining luxury”. Mr Gvasalia has been in agreement.

Hence, the baby tees and low-rise (thankfully not skinny) jeans, tube tops and yoga pants, and dresses for parent-teacher meetings. Notable is the general reduction in the bulk of Mr Gvasalia’s usual silhouettes (except for the last few looks). Sure, there was his obsession with the puffer coat (a true oddity for spring), but they did manifest as outers far trimmer than those that we have been used to, as if the current iteration were subjected to some dressmaking diet. But he could not totally pull himself away from the bulky. There were those looks on which extraneous clothes were piled on (in fact, clipped on, as with paper dolls), as well as draped on bags (they could be part of the bag), as if capturing the compositional turn-out of the homeless. And there were the couple of ensembles with massive and straight shoulders, except now they did not stretch to out there. Balenciaga fans would no doubt still rejoice.

Screen shot (top): balenciaga/YouTube. Photos: Balenciaga