Painting by Harmony Korine, the video director of the fashion show
The '90s always gave people room for imagination.
At that time Kurt · Cobain held an acoustic guitar with his left hand and gave an unplugged concert in New York, where he became an idol for young Americans; Jackson released Dancer, whose album sales have not been broken; Death Row Records on the West Coast is home to 2Pac, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre (Death Row once dominated half of American rap, earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the '90s).
On the other side of the Atlantic, dust rises again in vacant buildings, such as the underground vault of the Wertheim department store, which gave birth to Tresor, Germany's most famous club of the 90s. And such clubs even have dress codes – if they don't think you're cool enough, going home is the only option. But the novelty was unparalleled appeal, and young people flocked to the occasion for a truly different party.
That's where electronic dance music like Techno is emerging, where the inclusive Rave Party is breaking down social and musical barriers, where people are full of hope and gather in dilapidated but large enough spaces to dance for a better world, and that's where the fusion of new things comes together. Collision and fusion are the main themes of Balenciaga during demna's time, and he always finds surprising elements and places them on the runway in a more modern way, as is the case with the new season of Balenciaga Fall 22.
This is new
But a bit nostalgic
Thanks to Cristóbal Balenciaga's insistence on haute couture, the brand itself disappeared from the public eye in the 1990s. Does that sound a bit deplorable? In fact, it is not, creative people always have their own persistence, and the "hard bones" inherited by Balenciaga himself still influence the brand.
Just a few days ago, on December 9, Demna (as he asked people to call him in the creative industry) pulled out an "ancient" video called The Lost Tape, once again giving the world something new and different, the Balenciaga Fall 22 runway was officially held, and the live screen looked like it came from a VHS camera from the last century. Obviously, that's what he wanted with a personal and branded style, and a 1990s timeline based on the 2020s was opened by Demna.
In order to pull people back to the unique era when creativity is king, before the fashion show officially began to broadcast live, the official release of the pilot video cut from the end of the film. And through the characters that appear in the video, the theme of this season is actually ready to come out.
The first person I wanted to talk about was Naomi Campbell, whose arrival set off a cheer on the scene, and everything was like a movie. Naomi was the first black model to appear on the cover of the British vogue and Times magazine, and Saint Laurent himself told a magazine that he would cancel the ad if he didn't let Naomi on the cover because of race.
There is no doubt that she is a pioneer in the fashion industry in breaking racial prejudice. In a 1997 interview with The Guardian, she said, "There are biases in our industry. It's a problem, and I can't hide it under the carpet anymore. The industry is about selling goods, and blonde girls are doing things like that. ”
The '90s were the peak of Naomi Campbell, when someone who could be called a supermodel was one of them around the world who could count on one hand. Naomi herself has largely represented the 90s quest for equality and rebellion against the old, which is what she has been doing to this day.
And about Balenciaga Fall 22, she said: "I think this show is cross-era. ”
The second is Diane Pernet, who has achieved extraordinary things in the digital age, and after the internet began to rise in the 90s, she was one of the first to accept the arrival of the new era with open arms and try to do something within a new medium.
Her blog, ASVOF( A Shaded View On Fashion), pioneered the genre of fashion blogging, and she was also a pioneer in fashion cinema, creating the critically acclaimed fashion film festival A Shaded View On Fashion Film, through which she hopes to discover younger creators.
Diane Pernet is also an independent designer, and unlike many outfits, which are more in form than content, she wants to make clothes that make women feel beautiful, comfortable and powerful. "I think I've always been myself, never really following the trends or even caring about them at all." Diane Pernet says
About the runway, she said: "Elegant and relaxed, it's like... A dream. ”
In third place, susanne Bartsch, queen of New York nightlife. She may not be too well-known, but without her, the Clubs and Gatherings of New York in the '90s might have lost much of its color, and Susanne Bartsch was the patron saint of change and inclusion in New York City.
Born in Sweden, the changemaker became friends with the likes of Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin guitarist) and Malcolm McLaren (Sex Pistol agent) in Europe, and also opened boutiques in New York to sell clothing like Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano.
Her party welcomes all the fun, she gives LGBTQ people equal space for drag queens to dance at the party, and designers like Gaultier and Mugler come to see what's new lately. Fashion, opera, juggling, cabaret, burlesque, Susanne blended everything you could think of at a party, and she managed to break haute's boundaries with the Club.
Speaking of her thoughts on the show, her expression was more direct: "I love it all, I want to have it all." ”
Not some kind of design
He wanted an atmosphere
Before officially watching the model appear on the catwalk, the first impression of people through live broadcasting is music. Compared to BFRND, which has been creating runway music for Balenciaga for many years, it is even more surprising to use the Destinations brought by the French devil Gesaffelstein in the tidbits section at the beginning of the runway.
In fact, this may have been a harbinger, as Gesaffelstein was already on it when Balenciaga shared its playlist called Demna's Playlist in 2020. He's a legendary electronic music producer with a long list of artists including The Weeknd, Daft Punk, Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and many others, whose musical style is hard to define.
It's hard to define, it should be a positive word, like the style Demna created for Balenciaga. If you see something at first glance, you can already see everything... Then give up this thing, it will no longer surprise you and explore. Gesaffelstein's music doesn't sound fast, as an electronic music producer he would play the piano in a suit while smoking a cigarette during a live performance, and there were Elements of Industrial in his work, but it sounded like Techno music influenced by joy division.
Balenciaga Fall 22 Backstage
That's more fun isn't it? When the "rough-sounding" Destinations sounded at the beginning of the live video, with the visual picture of the staff waiting for the work to sit paralyzed on the couch smoking a cigarette, all kinds of models who did not look "serious", everyone laughed happily. It wasn't like the backstage of a haute couture brand, it was more like an upcoming '90s '90s "illegal" Rave Party.
There hasn't been a single image of balenciaga Fall 22 costume yet, but maybe you already have a rough impression of it in your head.
Looking at the specific clothing, this loose low-waisted jeans want to be discussed first, it is really very charming. But in fact, at the first sight of it, my friends who watched the live broadcast together asked me how to wear these pants out of the house on a rainy day?
Wear it out the door on a rainy day! Imagining the pants being wet with mud and water, or even stepping on the legs of the pants, walking into the worst toilet in Scotland in "Guess the Train", the image of the wet Redden immediately appeared in front of my eyes, and the Rolls-Royce in "Smoke", with a set of drums in the back seat, and the rich second generation hippieman who did not listen to his parents' arrangement to go to military school but liked to play bands.
They may not all wear slouchy low-rise jeans, but they feel the same way because the movie image shares the same spiritual core as these Looks, about the young people's quest for freedom and physical liberation. Demna is using his method to draw inspiration from the shape of the so-called "marginal" people of the past and make it "advanced".
This is followed by excavator over-the-knee boots inspired by cowboy boots, which, as the name suggests, are derived from Western denim, and the spirit of adventure they represent has been engraved in american national culture.
Cowboy boots also represent hippies. Scott McKenzie sang in the song San Francisco, "If you're going to San Francisco, don't forget to wear a garland on your head," which attracted countless hippie youths known as "flower boys" to go there, and San Francisco became a "holy place" of love and peace.
But what the hippies brought to them has long since been lost, and now it's probably more about business and money, after all, the hippies of the past will not ask you for $1 because you took a picture with him.
On the runway, Demna made a more modern transformation of the cowboy boots with new materials, and the choice of styling was completely different, different from the loose hippie style, he would choose a tight short top from Rave culture to match the cowboy boots. It's a great idea, most of the interesting stuff comes from fusion, the spirit of inheritance is enough, exactly the same as what was worn in the 90s, which is a problem that historians should study, not costume designers.
Another key word is Post-Grunge. Grunge' original meaning was a mixture of gasoline and dirt leaking from cars, a musical style that early Grunge musicians often bought in second-hand stores, and these white clothes and ripped jeans became popular with Nirvana's music.
But the interesting point is the Post in front of Grunge. If grunge vents their dissatisfaction, anger and helplessness in their lyrics, Post-Grunge tries to find redemption for them, Grunge works are more rough and primitive, and Post-Grunge has a higher production integrity. Becoming a little more complete, a little more refined, and a little more popular, shouldn't be a bad thing.
So Demna found a good entry point, and that was Post-Grunge. He re-designed in a deconstructed way while retaining his rebellious spirit, like the five-pocket jeans that could be disassembled into miniskirts, trousers or XL boots. Retro should capture the spirit of the past era and recreate it in a modern way, and only being a porter of certain elements does not make people interested.
Through these details, it is not difficult to see that Demna does not want to reflect the skateboard element through some specific design (similar to making the runway into a skateboarding field?). To express, he wants to create an atmosphere.
BFRND, Demna, Isabelle Huppert
His theory is probably "the more you talk, the weaker your voice"? But that's the way it is, if it's a good work, you don't need to attach the 200-word artwork explanation that no one can understand, and the moment you stand in front of it, you are already in a certain atmosphere, which can make you feel the spiritual and cultural core of the 90s, which is naturally more impressive than hanging a sign on the show that reads "From 90s".
Looking at the entire Balenciaga Fall 22 show, the most intense feeling is actually the word fusion. It's not simple, just as the difference between surgery and slaughter is whether it's precise or not, Demna has the precision of a surgeon, he "cuts" the interesting and suitable things, then adds his own ideas and brings a big meal to everyone.
Unintentionally falling into a sewage pond
Lu Xun once wrote in "Autumn Leaves": "In my back garden, I can see two trees outside the wall, one is a jujube tree, and the other is also a jujube tree. "Some people think it's extremely boring language, yes, because it's not describing something concrete, it's conveying a feeling. This feeling explains the state of people at that time, confused about everything and even lost interest, it was an era full of problems and emptiness, no one could even see a way out, so there was Lu Xun who sat in the backyard and looked left and right, but could only see two jujube trees.
If everyone is happy (which may not be realistic), lu xun may not be needed, but if everyone starts to re-read his works, it means that there is something wrong with this era. It's certainly not surprising that no era is perfect, but what most people are doing is "I know everything, I satirize everything, but I don't do anything". It doesn't mean that seeing a problem can't be asked, but it's more respectable than someone who only asks a question, and can do something isn't it?
The 90s were a time of "weak will", new ideas and new media were being born, the world was more turbulent, and the so-called "marginal" people were mostly "unintentionally falling into the sewage pond". The young people of that era did have a lot of "problems", but there were also people who tried to fight guns with flowers, and some people continued to say Make Love Not War.
Demna today is like the people who broke the rules back then.
He likens Balenciaga Fall 22/The Lost Tape to a work of art that has no purpose but can elicit an emotional response. Because he does not stop at playing with fabrics and cuts, but hopes to pay attention to the problems encountered by young people now through fashion, and also hopes to find "gold" from "dirt" by integrating unique fragments of the spirit of the times under personal perspective. That reminds everyone that times are not absolutely beautiful, but keep the good things of each era.
Worthy
After all, it's not all dirty in the cracks with the mainstream world, and even dirty isn't necessarily a derogatory term," Demna says, "People have forgotten that era (the 90s) because you can't really find it." Fashion in those days was dirtier, more vulgar and more interesting than now, where everything posted on every platform was well thought out and everything was so elegant and decent. Perhaps, he found something truly "advanced" from the "nasty" Rave Party he had been to as a child and the "dirty" rock musicians he had ever seen.
And the next sentence of "unintentionally falling into the sewage pond" is also "looking up at the sky".
Written by: y
EDIT: Dark clouds
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