Kim Kardashian, Nicole Kidman, Dua Lipa Model in Balenciaga Couture Show – The Hollywood Reporter

Balenciaga won the couture sweepstakes again this season with an exciting show filled with famous models including Kim Kardashian† Nicole KidmanDua Lipa and Sell ​​sunset star Christine Quinn.

Wednesday’s spectacle should cement Demna’s reputation as a master of high-low cultural management — and one of the most exciting thinkers and practitioners in fashion today. The show had a knife-to-the-throat intensity, enhanced by a throbbing symphonic soundtrack, and face-obscuring RoboCop-like face shields, developed in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz racing engineers.

But underneath there was also an emotional jerk in the throat. Was it the love poem recited in French when the show started? The rousing music amplified by handbag-shaped boomboxes carried by some models? Or just the visceral beauty of Demna’s voluptuous tailoring and killer tailoring?

The VIP arrivals were a show in itself: Kris Jenner waving in from behind alien sunglasses, her granddaughter North West in tow; drag star Alexis Stone channels Jocelyn Wildenstein and dabs his makeup with a sponge before taking a selfie with Róisín Murphy; Offset pose for photos with Alton Mason in his bulging clown shoes, and Balenciaga chief executive officer Cédric Charbit tells Tracee Ellis Ross, only half-jokingly, to kick the hem of the grand finale dresses as they get stuck in the narrow doorway next to her seat. .

The first looks—bodies swathed in rubbery neoprene, faces through obscured glass—were hauntingly, and also hauntingly chic, shoulders beautifully extended on the dresses, one with a train so oil-stained you almost expected it to be stained. come the white carpet.

Long-sleeved sheath dresses were given shimmering or shaggy textures, just like jeans that vibrated with thousands and thousands of dangling jet beads. The craftsmanship was astounding, and the press notes explained that a leopard-print jacket was composed of 150 kilometers of hand-tufted yarn.

The show cycled through Demna obsessions which he brought out in dizzying ways: giving a denim jacket a head-closing collar; adding aluminum to oversized T-shirts so they can be crumpled into breezy shapes, and squeezing his corset-waisted menswear.

In a scrum after the show, the designer said he decided to inject more of himself into his sophomore couture endeavors and follow his instincts more. This led him to an ‘alien futurism’ that eventually succumbed to the heritage and opulence of founder Cristóbal Balenciaga. “Beauty in its classical context, shall we say,” he offered.

Historians are sure to point to this show to push couture into the Insta generation. After the show, guests were invited to visit the two Balenciaga Couture Stores, where it is possible to buy looks straight from the catwalk, and other limited-edition products. At the men’s store, Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli threw on a crumpled hoodie and looked at himself in the mirror. In the ladies’ store, Charbit pointed to the most expensive item that hung behind frosted glass: a 100,000 euro coat in a trompe-l’oeil tweed made of ribbons, beads and sequins. A scented candle in a chrome bus costs a shopper 350 euros; the boombox, part of a collaboration with Bang & Olufsen, 8,500 euros.

“A lot of people started asking me after the first couture: ‘How do we buy couture? Who do we call?’ People don’t know, especially from the younger generation of emerging couture clients that we want to start a dialogue with,” explains Demna. “There are many [garments] with volumes that do not actually need to be customised. It’s more about the technique, the material, how it is put together.”

The designer also brought Balenciaga couture into the eco-era and realized about a quarter of the collection via upcycling: Trenchcoat belts became an oversized trenchcoat; leather belts, a serpentine tubular dress and antique wristwatches, unusual jewelry that just keeps on ticking.

In a recent interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Demna compared herself to an osteopath for fashion, who solved the blockages. He is also a wizard.

This story originally ran WWD†