Balenciaga, the parade is an act of resistance to the geopolitical storm (and a cry against war)

Like every season, winter brings with it archetypes that go beyond plummeting temperatures, or landscape transmutation. It’s a time to be there prepare to face the darkappreciating the light taken for granted until a few weeks before, together with all the vitality of the heat.

And it is a moment that humanity has faced in cycles: not in a literal sense, but above all metaphorical. Demna Gvasaliaon the occasion of the Balenciaga fashion show for Fall / Winter 2022-23, he wanted to reflect in a powerful show – such as had not been seen for over a decade, with Alexander McQueen – the winter that the human being has to face in this historical moment, from climate crisis to war in Ukraine.

Staged in a huge glass aquarium during an artificial snowstorm, the show was the development, individual and collective at the same time, of a heartbreaking observation: whoeverin every corner of the world and at any time, can become a refugee.

And here the classic looks are reduced and redesigned, highlighting doubly daring silhouettes: these in fact recall both a sense of protection, from outerwear reinvented in a total closed mode, to gloves, boots and packing tapes around the garments, which the need for dynamism and flexibilityincluding double-breasted suits and foldable trench coats, and the inevitable trousers and technical tops.

Even the bags recall this practical as well as existential sense, from the actual substance, that is the alternative reused and sustainable materials, to the soft box shapes of the Cruch Bag. Or again, the Trash Pouch, which evokes in no uncertain terms a garbage bag, the most “expensive ever”as declared Demna Gvasalia, proud of the provocation.

A collection that screams a loud and clear message in every detail, deliberately hardly visible in the whirlwind of paper fragments that have replicated the snowflakes. In this case, in fact, the Fall / Winter 2022-23 fashion show brings with it the urgency to convey awarenessthe same one that the creative director of Balenciaga experienced when he fled with his family from the civil war in Georgia, in 1993: “I have become a refugee forever” he wrote in a note, placed in each session of the show together. in t-shirts of the colors of Ukraine.

A trauma reopened as an old wound which, however, prompted the designer to wanting to give something more than a simple fashion presentation: «I understood that canceling this show would have meant surrendering, surrendering to the evil that has already hurt me so much for almost 30 years. I have decided that I can no longer sacrifice parts of myself to that senseless and merciless war of the ego ”.

The title of the fashion show then, 360 degrees, not by chance appropriates the language of VR technology, subverting and recreating the same effect in real life. Behind a gigantic glass screen, in fact, remember how essential it is to really live the real moment and understand every consequence of our actions on it, from climate change to the wars that we all feed, in our own small way. Like in a souvenir crystal ball, Demna Gvasalia leaves us as much with a bitter taste in our mouth as with an essential reminder: however much you can shake it, the storm will always end. In the meantime, what we can and must do is support and accomplish acts of resistancewaiting for spring.

In the gallery, the images of the Fall / Winter 2022-23 fashion show.

Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you:

– Zendaya from Valentino and the other stars at Paris Fashion Week

– Paris Fashion Week, what to expect from the Fall / Winter 2022-23 fashion shows

– Paris fashion shows Fall-Winter 2022/23: the most beautiful shoes