It works with everything!

Balenciaga Couture FW 2024/25: The Revolution of Haute Couture Materials by Alessandro Turci

The Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia is the true heir of Martin Margiela. Yes, it is true that Martin Margiela was the undisputed genius of contemporary fashion, whose modernity has spanned from the ’80s to the present day, perhaps even more relevant now, providing the genuine sense sought in vain by many.

With the revolution brought from the East by the sacred monsters of intellectual fashion such as Yamamoto Kansai, Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, and Yohji Yamamoto, the vision had already changed.

Fashion makes you think.

Demna embodies this, making even the fashion audience think, and he does it well, without being biased or opportunistic.

Fashion is as varied as its market. Often, it follows trends without generating anything new, except more products.

An elitist language like that of Haute Couture demands adequate reasoning. Despite everything. A couturier can be seen as a tailor who beautifies and gracefully satisfies the clients who rely on him. This is no small feat. But it is not the only task of fashion.

Whether it is a denunciation of the system as Franco Moschino provocatively did in the famous “Couture” catwalk of 1989, where he interrupted the runway to launch the Fashion Blitz (a video that questioned the value of fashion shows), or introducing elements and fabrics into Couture that are considered distant and inappropriate for that world, the fact remains that thought is unequivocally expressed where good taste remains silent. This rupture generates the tension that well represents our current way of living. And it does so with the tools available to the creator: materials, shapes, and cuts. There are no proclamations or manifestos, no shows or appearances, just clothes.

This fashion is made of research, risk, fun, and great technical skill, but above all, vision. A look that leads to seeing beyond the visible. “One must imagine the impossible to overcome the unacceptable,” wrote Ursula Le Guin. Progress advances through a methodology that contemplates risk and error as fundamental steps for its verification.

The precision of language unites Art and Fashion both where technical expertise is required and in modulating new avant-garde perspectives. There is no other way to do it. The concept surpasses the form, dominates it, and creates a different sense beyond formal logic, tradition, and craftsmanship. And it is precisely the rule that is contradicted. Contradiction as “real existence.”

The collection is a mash-up of subculture and haute couture, materials suitable for Demna’s language such as denim, sweatshirts, padded nylon used as gazar, organza, and tulle with volumes and proportions inspired by the great Cristóbal. These decisions are experienced as radical and not acceptable compromises.

The soundtrack speaks with a warm voice of empathy, compassion, and joy. We cannot help but join in the Deleuzian consideration that defines joy as awareness, acceptance, and knowledge. This path opens up new and further aesthetic investigations, conscious of our destiny as aware protagonists.

Alessandro Turci speaking