Cathy Horyn

With his spring-summer 2024 Balenciaga fashion show, Demna reminds once again that he’s a contemporary fashion visionary. “I have to be me. I can’t repress my creativity. I can’t castrate my vision. I just can’t do those things. It’s not me. So this collection is a celebration of everything that I love about fashion”, the designer said. Demna was coming off a year during which, he said, “I felt very alone.” In reaction, his latest show was a gathering of “the people who have meant most to me in my personal and professional life,” from his mother, who opened the show, to his husband Loïck Gomez, also known as BFRND, who wore the finale wedding dress, and mixed and scored the soundtrack featuring Isabelle Huppert reading out the instructions for tailoring a jacket. There were a whole lot of hot topics to unpack. When Demna talks of what he loves about fashion, he defines it in opposition to luxury. Some of his people were carrying faux passports with boarding cards to Geneva (where he lives) slotted into them – they were Balenciaga wallets, in fact. “Because it’s more about identity, to me,” he said. “I questioned a lot about that: How is fashion created? For me, I have to be honest: I don’t care much about luxury. I don’t want to give people a proposition to look like they’re rich or successful. Because ‘luxury’ is top down, and what is often seen as quite provocative about me is – I do bottom up.”

As for the clothes, it’s all about the quintessence of Demna’s trademark style: humungous tailoring, oversize hoodies and jeans, sinister leather coats and military camouflage were represented. So were plissé evening gowns, floral prints, bathrobes, motorcycle leathers. Vintage trenches and bombers were cobbled together with four sleeves apiece. Multiple evening gowns were made from multiple old evening gowns—black velvet, fuchsia satin, glittery gold. Demna’s jokey accessories were everywhere: Balenciaga sneakers grown even more absurdly vast than ever; supermarket grocery totes reproduced in leather; marabou-trimmed men’s kitten-heeled boudoir slippers, and hand-carried shoes converted into clutch bags. With all his favourite people on the runway – starting from Cathy Horyn and Renata Litvinova and ending on Elizabeth Douglas and Amanda Lepore – it seemed that Demna was truly proud of the collection. “What I showed today was probably my most personal and my most favorite collection, because it was about me; it was about my story.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Ten years – a decade – means really something in fashion industry. Phoebe Philo’s era at Céline didn’t only change the course of fashion (minimal-slash-arty aesthetic; raw, Juergen Teller-like advertising; presenting pre-collections just before they hit the stores – many other labels follow Philo’s ‘rules’ like a prophet), but the way women approach clothing. Once the Céline woman goes for masculine, XXL coats that continue to sell like hot buns since Philo’s collections in 2010; then, the other time she takes a delicate slip-dress with lace inserts or a clingy, knitted sweater in olive-green. In her feature on Philo’s power, Cathy Horyn stated in the following way: Philo’s clothes were not just simply for women; they were also about women — their distractions, their routines, the way they stuff a bag under an arm or concoct an outfit out of a dress and trousers, their sideways longing for red-lipped glamour, their disdain for basics, their love of uniforms, their wisdom and maturity. Unlike other designers who do ready-to-wear, Phoebe didn’t bother with ‘telling stories’ – she just wanted the clothes to become a woman’s close friend.

For me, her collections were the most anticipated moments during Paris fashion weeks, while the look-books were always like a sweet treat. Whether we’re speaking of Philo’s spring-summer 2013 fur-lined Birkenstock sandals, autumn-winter 2017 green blankets, autumn-winter 2015 white sneakers or spring-summer 2017 mega-big tote bag, it’s undisputable: she is the master of desirable, yet unconventional accessories. My heart bleeds, when I think of all the beautiful things Philo gave us while at helm of the maison. The rumour has it that the designer isn’t planning to lead a label anytime soon. Although that sounds devastating, it makes sense: Phoebe Philo frequently highlighted her urge for ‘slowing down’. Today’s fashion is at a insanely pointless, fast pace. I hope that 2018 will become some kind of ‘breaking’ year for all that.

Below, I’m looking back at some of my favourite Phoebe-at-Céline wonders.