The Parisian label’s SS19 was the designer’s most personal yet, exploring his upbringing in the politically troubled Georgia
After a brief appearance on the menswear schedule, Vetements is back to show as part of Couture for SS19 – this evening in Paris, the brand staged an outdoor presentation (in sweltering 32 degree heat, NBD) in which love (as well as sex, violence, and family) was most definitely in the air. In fact, designer Demna Gvasalia said that if he had to change anything about the last five years, he would make this his first collection. Here’s everything that went down.
THE INVITE WAS A HEART-SHAPED LEBKUCHEN
The kind of cookie you might find at a German Christmas market, or get your bae’s name on on a school trip. Decorated with VETEMENTS SS19 in icing, and complete with piped flowers and hearts, it was a subtle clue as to what Demna Gvasalia had in store for us later in the day – mainly that beneath the darkness of the upcoming show, there was a message of love.
IT WAS HELD UNDER BD PÈRIPHÈRIQUE…
... the motorway that encircles Paris, marking out the boundary of the city. Beneath the towering concrete stilts holding up the road, two long banquet tables had been laid out, complete with lines of white plastic chairs tied with tulle, wedding style.
DEMNA GOT PERSONAL FOR THE FIRST TIME
Where mostly Demna’s work with Vetements has explored clothing rather than concept (last season going slightly off piste to address the elephant in the room of his Margiela influences), for SS19 he got personal. Describing the show as something his shrink might have got a lot out of, he said the collection was about “family and war” – it felt like a way to help him process his trauma around growing up in war-torn Georgia, where his house was bombed, and his grandmother temporarily lost her memory from the stress of it all. “I went back to my past in Georgia to face my fears and painful moments that I never went back to, like post-war in the 90s,” he said. “And I really made the most personal fashion proposition out of that.”
WHICH TRANSLATED INTO NATIONALISTIC AND MILITARISTIC CLOTHES
While some models wore hoodies which literally said ‘Georgia’ in the country’s alphabet, a few others had outerwear which mirrored the flags of countries including Georgia but also Russia, America, and Ukraine. There was also a strong military theme which manifested in white, black, and grey camouflage, balaclavas, and heavy lace-up boots. Sure, the collection also had lots of club-ready, sexy clothes, but this side of the Vetements army felt decidedly menacing.
IT WAS MODELLED BY OVER 40 STREET-CAST GEORGIAN KIDS
“They represent for me what I represented when I came to Europe years ago,” Gvasalia said of his line up, which he described as like the characters of a film he was directing. “A certain naivety, a voice they feel they don’t have in their own country. I use them as a voice for this youth who doesn’t have a voice and is repressed by a political regime but they can’t demonstrate or say what they think – there is no real freedom. I lived through that and I realised it was a very painful moment for me and I needed to put it out there.”
THERE WERE SOME MENACING MASKS
Among the looks were some S&M-looking masks in the form of black, leather hoods with slits for eyeholes. “Masks... kind of (erase) identity to me,” Gvasalia explained backstage. “The masks represent me, that’s the way I felt.” Feeling confined by the metaphorical mask for years, the designer finally found the confidence to remove it approaching this show. What changed? “I fell in love,” he said. “It changed me and changed my way of doing shows too.” Giant heart eyes emojis.
AND... YOU COULD SCAN THE LOOKS VIA A VETEMENTS APP
Yep. While you’ve been living in 2018, Demna has been living in 3018. The upcoming app will allow users to scan VR codes on the clothes, to take them to the Wikipedia page on the Georgian genocide. Fashionable and educational all at once. More on that futuristic tech here.