For a brand that created a lot of noise last autumn, the catwalk underneath the Louvre felt eerily quiet on Sunday morning. “There will be nothing to see but clothes,” said Demna, Balenciaga’s artistic director, before the show. “I need to be the radical antidote – to not be in that conversation at all. That’s what Cristóbal Balenciaga would do.”
Cristóbal left Balenciaga in 1968 but Demna’s Balenciaga couldn’t afford to be quiet for ever. It’s still a business, and this is the brand’s first collection since November’s controversial advertising campaign that saw sales drop dramatically, where children were photographed holding teddy bears in bondage gear.
