A subdued show at Paris Fashion Week on Sunday morning underscored Balenciaga’s current motive: move on from the scandal that rocked the brand at the end of 2022 while stripping down spectacle to focus on clothing.
“Fashion has become a kind of entertainment, but often that part overshadows the essence of it,” read creative director Demna’s note to guests left on show seats. “In the last couple of months, I needed to seek shelter for my love affair with fashion, and I instinctively found it in the process of making clothes…This is why fashion can no longer be seen as entertainment, but rather the art of making clothes.”
For the Autumn/Winter 2023 collection, he forewent logos and sneakers and the more dramatic moments that the brand’s runways had become known for in recent years, like a staged snowstorm that swirled around models lugging trash bags for AW22 and a runway mud pit for SS23. This season, the set was minimalistic, with models striding down a clean ivory carpet. The show’s location, an event space within the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall, was kept under wraps until the night before, minimising attention outside before it began. The space itself was a blank slate of sorts — Carrousel du Louvre was Paris Fashion Week’s centre stage until the early 2000s but had been almost deserted by fashion brands as a show venue for two decades.
Celebrity attendance was also very much diminished. Korean-American rapper Big Matthew, Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang and Chinese actress Song Jia sat front row; last season, Kylie Jenner attended, while former brand ambassador Kim Kardashian attended the AW22 show.
