This haute couture season proves that fashion indeed needs a reset – and the seismic shift of designer departures and new appointments is a healthy cleanse of the system. Chanel’s final pre-Matthieu Blazy show, coming from the overstayed, post-Virgie Viard studio, looked and felt like a parade of dusty, beige utensils that found their way out of a cupboard. Demna‘s final act for Balenciaga, although high on farewell emotions, did convince me that it’s really time to move on. Whatever his Gucci will be, it should definitely operate on a different methodology than the one he created at Balenciaga. It’s understandable he chose to close his chapter at the maison with a collection that was one big bowl of reheated nachos, from the model casting (from synonymous-with-the-brand Isabelle Huppert to on-the-nose Kim Kardashian) to the line-up’s overall look, a Frankenstein hybrid cross-pollinated by the Georgian designer’s idiomatic volumes and proportions, and Cristobal’s archival tropes. But somehow I hoped Demna’s Balenciaga fin would be a one last conceptual stretch, like a dress made from hundreds of meters of taffeta draped on the model a few minutes before the show, or the memorable “Parliament” show.

Nevertheless, here’s to Demna’s new chapter at Gucci, and as for Pierpaolo Piccioli: the Balenciaga floor is yours.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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