And relax: Balenciaga wants you to chill the fuck out

We’re at the end of another breakneck fashion season, with the men’s shows spanning Milan and Paris, and a four day Haute Couture sesh rounding things off, so needless to say – whether you’re on the frontline in the chiffon trenches or ingesting everything going down through your phone screen at home – it’s time for a little rest.

Seems like Demna’s intent on getting us to close TikTok and Instagram and take a minute to just… breathe. At the designer’s latest Balenciaga Haute Couture show, which kicked off the penultimate day of AW24, a meditative instructional soundtrack encouraged the audience to tune into their bodies, take a series of deep breaths, and imagine themselves happy, content, and at peace.

It sat in stark contrast with Demna’s usual shows, which are renowned for being an onslaught for the senses. His AW24 ready-to-wear outing featured uncanny CGI and AI graphics of kittens, puppies, and global locations flashing across a tunnel of video screens, the end result a jarring journey that made attendees feel like they were hurtling through cyberspace at an unfashionable rate. There were also the times he plunged guests into the depths of hell and a raging flood via artist Jon Rafman’s apocalyptic graphics.

In its own way, though, the guided meditation was almost as uncanny as Demna’s more intense techno soundtracks. The designer has always mined the dark side of the internet, post-capitalism, and pop culture for inspiration, with his collections both critiquing and celebrating. This time it’s the turn of the wellness industry – something he already touched on at his blockbuster Los Angeles show in 2023 and a subsequent collaboration with Erewhon – and the way it has infiltrated our lives, sometimes to our detriment.

That dark side translated to the catwalk as Demna turned the inoffensive kind of butterflies you’d see plastered on a spa wall into almost nightmarish masks, which were a standout of the show. Elsewhere, bunches of belts became sweeping gowns that jingled as the model walked, and a swathe of pink-toned tees and sweatshirts became an equally grand evening dress. As ever in the Georgian designer’s hands, metal hoodies and XXL denim jeans were given the couture treatment as he continued to redefine the parameters and markers of the revered medium.