“I hate to be that girl, but I’m gonna be that girl,” Hanan Besovic from ideservecouture starts his review of the Balenciaga Spring 2024 collection. “The collection feels a bit repetitive, just like many commented,” Besovic continued. Now that Demna, Balenciaga’s creative director, isn’t longer allowed to create meme-worthy fashion, did he run out of ideas?
Cover photo: courtesy of Balenciaga
Balenciaga Spring 2024
After the enormous scandal last year, including accusations of child abuse, everyone thought Balenciaga’s Demna would resign. He did the opposite: reinventing the fashion house and returning it to its core. Fashion, as Cristobal Balenciaga once meant, was Demna’s message for Balenciaga’s fall/winter 2023 collection. It led to a reintroduction of classics but in a modern, Demna-approved way. Today, the Balenciaga Spring 2024 collection was launched. And despite the absence of mockery, provocative, or meme-inducing fashion statements, the reactions were mixed.
Reinvention or repetition?
When viewing the Balenciaga Spring 2024 collection, one question arises: where did I see this before? We don’t have to search very long to get answers; Demna’s first collection for the house, Fall/Winter 2016, shows countless similarities. The first look – displayed below – is a literal copy of the first look of his first collection back in 2015 – even the model is similar, and there’s no doubt she’s wearing the same glasses. Furthermore, the red ensemble is an obvious bet, too. Red is a Balenciaga favorite, but despite the color, the dress was part of Balenciaga’s couture collection – this time in Tweety-yellow. Furthermore, the necklines and open puffer coats and jackets are worn the same way as in 2016. We didn’t forget about the reimagined bags from Spring 2017 either. And while the provocative Balenciaga era might be over, the towel-around-the-waist look will raise eyebrows. “In a couple of days, there will be online articles about who will pay 700 dollars for a Balenciaga towel,” predicts Besovic. Highsnobiety mockingly refers to the collection as “Beach Towel Couture”. Whether the collection, more repetitive than thought at first sight after a closer look, will attract existing Balenciaga customers will be clear in a few months. Another bet of the house could be to keep up with the least provocative designs of the house while sticking to both Demna’s and Cristobal Balenciaga’s signatures. The brand’s scandal has to be one of the worst in recent fashion history, and therefore it might be a strategy to opt for repetition instead of newness – a safe bet lurking. The only thing that changed compared to Demna’s first collection, though, is the lack of diversity the brand was accused of eight years ago. Through time, Demna has shown he learned from these first critics. However, with Balenciaga aiming to return to its core, the true question is: who is still willing to pay a fortune for a Balenciaga towel?
