Balenciaga Fall 2017: The Office Reimagined by Demna Gvasalia

Demna Gvasalia is Redefining Men’s Workwear for a New Era

The office wardrobe of office VPs and middle aged men hardly ever enters the realm of high fashion, however when processed through the mind of a designer like Demna Gvasalia, the entire collection, including the bags challenge many of fashion’s traditional norms. Demna is known for his unique ability to tap into the zeitgeist and capture the mood on the street. And with plenty of street cred to his name Demna Demna focused on the men he sees going to work everyday and turned it on it’s head.

“At Balenciaga, wearing the clothes inspires new clothes. That’s the way we work here.” explains Demna Gvasalia. “My work is always about reality. It’s just honest. This is what’s happening around us,” states Demna Gvasalia. In a nod to Balenciaga’s parent company Kering, he imprinted hooded sweatshirts with the company’s logo splashed across the front. (Kering is next door to the Balenciaga studio.) Demna reworked the Balenciaga logo and printed it diagonally across many of the accessories as a white stitched logo that bears an uncanny resemblance to the political campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders. The footwear also underwent a dramatic overhaul. The Balenciaga Triple-S sneaker was re-imagined as an impossibly chunky dad sneaker, featuring a combination of three different colored soles on a purposely roughed up trainer.

Several looks in the collection were fused together, like a black trench coat, which turns into a pencil skirt from behind, and the many rubberised car-mat bodices and shoulder panels. Transforming the ordinary into a fashion moment. It’s the way the clothes are worn that makes them wonderfully inventive. Overall, there was plenty of Balenciaga’s trademark modernistic chic tailoring, but Demna succeeded in adding an edge of coolness to deliver one of his best collections to date.