Haute couture is about two things: absolute perfection and the illusion of control. And that's where Demna - fashion's eternal enfant terrible, who has been practicing deconstruction on an almost clinical level for the past few years - first took off his boxing gloves and put on... silk gloves. The fall 2025 couture collection is his elegant farewell to the house of Balenciaga: a collection so pure, so polished, that it is suspiciously quiet. Like a last word, spoken in a whisper in a ballroom amid velvet curtains and crystal chandeliers. Couture as a manifesto of the body. Also the one that exists beyond the size and label. But still, it is to be understood, in the shadow of a logo that is twice the size of the actual neckline.
There were no neon logos or mashed-up sneakers in the style of post-apocalyptic Paris. No - here was gabardine theater for the initiated. Coats carved like marble, suits so well-tailored as to be blasphemously classic. What an irony that the one who turned the aesthetics of luxury inside out is leaving the stage in absolute haute. Is this a joke? Or a classy gesture? Only Demna knows. We can only guess, and then sigh with superiority over a glass of champagne in the commentary box.
Instead of photographing models in marble palaces from the Louis XIV era, they were placed under overpasses, next to closed stores and Paris metro stops. OTOH, everyday life on high - overlooking concrete and Balenciaga. And on the catwalk? Soft armor corsets, like modeling underwear on steroids; neoprene gowns that looked like they came out of an Auschwitz sci-fi studio; shoulders as if from a latex power dressing nightmare; and the unexpected heroine of the season: a tattered briefcase bearing the marks of an office life that no one leads anymore.
It must be said that it was a spectacle that was not only beautiful, but also calculating. The models glided through the hushed space like ghosts of Cristóbal's past - but instead of nostalgia, one felt a controlled melancholy here. Black, ivory, a pinch of pewter gold. This was not a revolution - it was a plastic surgery of history. Demna did not shout, he did not provoke. He whispered - and that whisper was stronger than all his previous shouts put together.
And now the stage belongs to Pierpaolo Piccioli - an aristocrat of draping and a master of color whose vision of aesthetics borders on religious devotion. Will Balenciaga under his tutelage become the new Vatican of fashion? Or will it become an opera house of baroque splendor that will forget the grunge decadence of its predecessor? One thing is certain - Piccioli will have to climb to great heights, because Demna's last act closed the curtain with a class that no one suspected him of before.
In a world where fashion rushes at the speed of light, this show was like a pause - silent, but meaningful. And maybe that's why it was the loudest couture collection of the season. Not by scandals. Not by controversy. But by the quality. Pure, refined quality. Snobbish quality? Of course. But how pleasant it was to be seduced by it.
Photos courtesy of Balenciaga
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