Balenciaga’s fall show on Sunday morning, the first since its advertising scandal last November, felt different — very different.
Creative director Demna dispensed with celebrity hoopla and his dystopian sets — mud pit, wind tunnel, sunken stadium — to focus on “the art of making clothes,” which turned out to be his salvation when he and the house became engulfed in public outrage over ads that included children, sexualized teddy bears and papers related to a landmark child pornography case.
The show Sunday at the ultimate old-school venue, the Carrousel du Louvre, went off without any noticeable hitch, the runway theater as plain as can be: rows of black chairs in a long room lined with white toile, the primary tool for tailoring and dressmaking. Retailers, editors, influencers and a smattering of VIPs filled the room, and WWD saw no sign of demonstrations outside like the ones witnessed in front of a few dozen Balenciaga stores in the U.S. last November and December.
(However, at the Akris show afterward, a man outside displayed placards in protest of Balenciaga.)
The brand has been largely silent since the controversy erupted, save for multiple apologies, promises to make major changes in its “content organization,” the funding of a three-year program with U.S.-based association National Children’s Alliance, and an expansive interview with a rueful Demna in Vogue.
During a preview at Balenciaga headquarters with WWD a few days before the show, Demna said his metier helped him weather the barrage of online hate and death threats that came in the wake of two campaigns: a holiday gift one featuring children posing alongside a variety of items, including stuffed animals dressed in bondage gear, and a celebrity-stacked spring fashion one which included a still life of a handbag resting on a page from the 2008 Supreme Court ruling “United States v. Williams,” which confirmed the promotion of…
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