Highlights From Balenciaga's Winter 24 Collection during Paris Fashion Week

Taking place at les Invalides, under a set of screens tracking a narrative timeline from morning to night over natural and electronic landscapes, the projected images shift from actual to artificial—or somewhere in between the two states. Editing, splicing, content sharing, scrolling: each element and more plays across the monitors.

The soundtrack is composed by BFRND and features high energy rhythms, hypnotic melodies and voices turned into synths. 

The 24/7, a limited-edition wraparound mask, has an aerodynamic single-mold design that seamlessly obscures the wearer’s face around the eyes and along its sides by enveloping it from every angle. Ergonomic hollows hold each ear—looping under instead of simply sitting atop. Each end of the mask tapers toward the back of the head, leaving an opening so it can easily be donned or removed. A Balenciaga logo is lasered onto the left side.

Another standout was the limited-edition eBay t-shirt, with only 200 produced. The garment can be found in classic Balenciaga gray with a distressed treatment and eBay’s multi-colored logo.

Balenciaga Music, Curated by Artistic Director Demna, Provides A Unique Sartorial and Auditory Experience

On November 20th, 2023, Balenciaga announced the next phase of Balenciaga Music, curated by artistic director Demna. The initiative aims to provide a comprehensive music experience through innovative formats. The project features Archive, an English group with a 28-year history in electronic, trip-hop, post- and progressive rock. Archive created an exclusive 8.5-minute track, "Patterns," and a 7-hour playlist for Balenciaga.

The unique aspect of "Patterns" is its exclusive availability through an NFC chip embedded in limited-edition Balenciaga Music | Archive merchandise. Buyers can unlock an original listening event by scanning the chip with a smartphone. The interactive garments, including T-shirts and hoodies displaying Archive's discography, will be sold in selected Balenciaga stores worldwide and online.

This collaboration represents a first for both Archive and Balenciaga, as Archive has never worked with a fashion brand, and Balenciaga has never premiered music through a product. Alongside the exclusive track, Archive curated a 7-hour playlist available on a new Balenciaga Music hub on balenciaga.com, linking to various streaming services.

Darius Keeler, a founding member of Archive, emphasized the alignment of values between Balenciaga and Archive, emphasizing individuality and innovation. The project expands Balenciaga Music by introducing entirely new music tailored to Balenciaga's audience, coupled with a technically advanced merch series for accessing the music.

BFRND Releases Soundtrack To Balenciaga's Summer 2023 Collection

This week, BFRND released Elephant, Balenciaga’s Summer 2023 original soundtrack in collaboration With German rapper UFO361 and producer SONUS030. The inspiration for the soundtrack comes from the idea of having to fight to be who you are and the trio wanted to produce music that gives strength to their audience, something that you can listen to while walking in the street with the feeling of being indestructible, that nothing in this world can stop you from being who you are. The expression “The elephant in the room” is a metaphorical idiom for an important or enormous topic, question or controversial issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about, but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory, or dangerous. The term is often used to describe an issue that involves a social taboo, which generates disagreement, such as race, religion, politics or sexuality. It is applicable when a subject is emotionally charged; and the people who might have spoken up decide that it is probably best avoided. The artwork for this LP has been fully generated with Dall-e 2, a text-to-image artificial Intelligence developed by Open AI. Streaming everywhere now.

Read Our Review Of Vetements' Spring 2017 Couture Collection →

From the very beginning, Vetements connected with fashion lovers not because of how different it was, but because of how oddly familiar it is. Demna Gvasalia and his radical collective of European designers are primarily interested in the ways that mainstream products have been co-opted and used by various sub-cultures as signifiers, protectors, and weapons.  Demna will tell any interviewer that asks that Vetements is not a “conceptual” brand; that it’s really “just about clothes,” as the brand’s name would lead you to believe. But the fact of the matter, the “just clothes” mantra is conceptual in and of itself. Demna, and stylist Lotta Volkolva, use the identities of clothes to extrapolate ideas from them: a hoodie sized to this means X and jeans with this particular cut mean Y. It’s almost like the viewer or the wearer can project his or her own ideas onto the clothes, like a blank canvas. The skinhead and his bomber jacket, the DJ and his tracksuit, the model and her stilettos: Vetements constantly finds new ways of looking at products we’ve seen, and probably worn, 1000 times. Click here to read more. 

Read Our Review Of Paris Fashion Week's Spring Summer 2017 Presentations →

Paris Fashion Men’s Week was in typical fine form, re-invigorating my own lust for fashion after a dreary Milan and an uneven London. Though the two shows I’m usually most excited for, those by Raf Simons and Gosha Rubchinskiy, already played out in Florence, their absence didn’t deter my attention. That would be mainly because of one man: Demna Gvasalia. Demna introduced Balenciaga’s first menswear show in history. The expectations between that notion, not to mention Vetements being the coolest brand in fashion and all that, were colossal. How did Demna respond to this soul crushing pressure? Click here to read more.