People keep speculating that Balenciaga is going to hire one of the available designers floating around, even though the job isn’t even open, and the brand’s best acclaim lately has come from recreating Cristobal’s archival designs. For a while after his ad campaign scandal, Demna retreated a little from the absurd clothing and gross shows that had bespoke odors and rain and mud; this seems to be scooting back in a stupid direction. Take all of that together, and it’s almost as if he’s flipping the bird to his employers and saying, to borrow from Jennifer Lopez, “This is me now.” We’ll see if that goes better for him than it has for her. At least he still knows how to call in a starry front row, but… to see this? The last dress looks like a sentient trash bag.
