Balenciaga to Return to Couture in July
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Designer Demna Gvasalia, now fully dedicated to Balenciaga, is to add couture to his workload, showing his first collection for the French house in July.
Given that Balenciaga’s roots are in couture, Gvasalia said “it is my creative and visionary duty to bring couture back.”
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He called high fashion “an unexplored mode of creative freedom and a platform for innovation. It not only offers another spectrum of possibilities in dressmaking, it also brings the modern vision of Balenciaga back to its sources of origin. Couture is above trends. It’s an expression of beauty on the highest aesthetic and qualitative levels.”
Balenciaga ceased couture 52 years ago when the Spanish founder Cristóbal Balenciaga closed his fashion house.
The development brings a new name to couture week, and an unexpected one, given Gvasalia’s penchant for creating lust-worthy sneakers, hoodies and bomber jackets both at Balenciaga and at Vetements, the brand he founded with his brother Guram in 2014. (He stepped down from the creative helm of Vetements last fall.)
Balenciaga will also be the first fashion house owned by Kering to re-enter the couture fray. Kering also controls Saint Laurent, whose founder staged his last high-fashion show in 2002 upon his retirement.
Cédric Charbit, president and chief executive officer of Balenciaga, said the project was possible “due to the success of the creative vision of Demna Gvasalia as well as the exceptional results of Balenciaga these past few years.”
He noted the house would establish a dedicated team and atelier replicating the original salons at Balenciaga’s historical address at 10 Avenue George V.
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