It wasn’t too long ago that Balenciaga shows dealt with themes of war and refugee crises, the climate apocalypse, and the evils of corporate greed. These fashion spectacles, with pigtailed ravers in gimp masks and guys in towels walking through artificial snowstorms, confronted real world tragedy. But Balenciaga creative director Demna is also a master of creating compelling fashion world silhouettes—oversized tailoring, elegant gowns, and gargantuan sneakers. This clash of agony and ecstasy shot him and his clothes to global fame not just because it was complex and invigorating, but because it gave luxury shoppers permission to engage with politics in the relatively safe context of fashion.
So Saturday’s Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2024 show in Los Angeles was the ultimate shock to the system, not for the ugliness it revealed, but for the opposite. On a palm-tree lined street in Hancock Park so pristine you could think it was a movie set, Demna tackled his scariest topic yet: beauty.
Demna’s vision of subversive, raw, and grungy loveliness remains vivid, but his intentions in coming to Los Angeles are not so cynical. “Often people perceive my work as ironic—actually it’s the opposite. I was showing my love to the influence that I got from this city, it’s my favorite city in the world,” he told reporters after the show. “All my cultural evolution as a teenager, growing up in this kind of post-Soviet vacuum, it really came from here: movies, music, everything that I kind of absorbed that later on started to become my fashion references.”
Opened by a shirtless, six-packed dude in gym shorts, an iPhone pressed to his ear and a metal water bottle clutched in his hand, this collection made real the version of a perfect American life that Demna first discovered as a boy in the post-Soviet East. A life invented in Hollywood, a life that takes you from the gym to the health food store to Rodeo Drive and then to the red carpet. Over the course of 77 looks, he created the wardrobe for this idealized, sunkissed, and blessed existence. It may seem perverse in its idealism, but the freedom to indulge oneself in beauty is a freedom nonetheless—and perhaps a quintessentially Los Angeles one.
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The scene itself was like something from Real Housewives B-roll. In the glossy Californian sunlight, the Hollywood sign glistened in the distance. A vast swath of stars from Lil Wayne to Lisa Rinna were guided to the black, unmarked chairs lining the street by Balenciaga-clad handlers. One guest painted his face like a mime. One wore a robe, another a NASA space suit, and at least one was spotted in Balenciaga’s leather knight’s armor boots. Bodyguards the size of Escalades accompanied Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner. Shield sunglasses were the accessory du jour, drawing cheekbones to the heavens.
It was almost impossible to tell the difference between the A-Listers, the guests, the neighborhood mansion-dwellers, and the models. So many of them were wearing a version of the luxurious normie drag that Demna has perfect at Balenciaga. One thing for sure is that it was likely the longest the town car class has walked in Los Angeles in decades.
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The collection began in the pilates studio with easy sport attire and extreme accessories. Erewhon, the oft-memed nirvana for New Age biohackers, collaborated with the brand on logoed leather goods. (Demna described people watching at Erewhon like “going to a condensed fashion week.”)
Then came grunge daywear, paying homage to starlets shielding and revealing themselves to the paparazzi in Demna’ed versions of velour tracksuits rolled low to expose whale tails and four-sleeved hoodies “which can be used for paparazzi deterrence” per a press release. “We have all these pictures of people on the streets of LA, celebrities coming out of restaurants, the gas station, drive through—in general, not only celebrities, the people of LA—and I realized it’s probably the biggest influence that I have on my fashion aesthetic,” Demna said. “I love it.” On the models’ feet were the Alaska boot, a supersized shearling knee-high, and the 10XL sneaker, a shoe that more than triples the size of the brand’s Triple S design.
For men, Demna joined the suits-sans-shirts movement, identifying the shirt as the singular item that can date a suit. “I realize men’s looks on red carpets, in every different era, are always black suits. Nothing really changes about it except for the shirt…so I decided to take off the shirts and just use that one suit pattern for all the looks and change the fabric,” he said. Diamond chains and other jewelry by Jacob & Co. continued to riff on American flashiness, also marking Balenciaga’s first foray into fine jewelry.
A series of couture-grade red carpet gowns surely bound for just-announced brand ambassador Nicole Kidman, who appeared in all black in the front row, closed the show. Other looks had to travel less to find their ideal celebrity pairing: Cardi B walked the runway in a very Cardi B cobalt coat.
“I couldn’t show this in New York, I think,” Demna said laughing, “and I couldn’t show it in Paris in the same way. It is about what comes from here, how it impacts me, and how it impacts, I think, fashion in general and global culture.”
On the way out, guests looked for their town cars, Kim Kardashian filmed a new episode of The Kardashians, the rapper IDK showed Nadia Lee Cohen his pet snake, and people planned earnest trips to Erewhon to try the Hailey Bieber Strawberry Smoothie. “It was very L.A.,” actor Rachel Sennott told me. “Kind of making fun of us a little but also celebrating us.”
The show’s soundtrack was made by Demna’s husband BFRND to mimic the drone of radio advertisements. One cheered “the poetry of existence will be revealed to you” in a peppy female voice. “It’s all about feeling well, drinking spirulina juices, and putting down your phone to have real human social interactions. All the good stuff,” Demna said of the fake advertisements. “A celebration of what I love about America—and it comes from here.”
It’s the promise that these clothes won’t just change your body but they could change your life. Become a celebrity by dressing like one. It’s the ultimate American dream.
