"I'm not interested in anything in the media, including the average consumer," Gvasalia wrote me in an email this fall: "If someone is personally offended by Crocs, there may be a bigger problem with that person than the design of the shoes." a shoe". "As for those who think they're being mocked by pointing out the absurdity of Balenciaga's multimillion-dollar versions of low-quality, mass-produced objects: 'Everything I do has a reason for being,'" he says. shoddy graduation or an 'unreasonably expensive' market bag hasn't accidentally crept into my collection without me super-consciously putting it there. I know this may not be "understood" by the average social media critic? Yes, I know. It matters to me? I'm pretty sure you know the answer. I just do the fashion that I like and that I enjoy; it's that easy".
Gvasalia rose through the fashion industry in the last six years as a provocateur, but now sits at the top as a lover, as his most electric practitioner and his biggest fan. The 40-year-old Georgian-born designer introduced streetwear and an ambivalent Eastern European menace to the luxury business, first as the de facto head of the Vetements collective, and then, starting in 2015, as the artistic director of Balenciaga. He hasn't changed the way the entire world dresses, but he has done something more fascinating: He codified the way we already dressed into a global style sensibility, transforming the everyday into cult-worthy objects. In the process, he positioned Balenciaga as the embodiment of a certain hostility to big corporate fashion, and as the coolest brand on the planet. Caring for the environment is in fashion and Balenciaga knows it.
In the last two years, however, Gvasalia seems to have shed the angst of a designer proving himself and now clearly believes in the power of fashion: "I'm a happier person now than I was five or two years ago. "says the designer reflecting on this change in attitude. (By the way, it's been two years since Gvasalia left Vetements, in part to focus exclusively on Balenciaga): "I'm much more connected to myself, to my creative vision and my artistic mission, which is to move things forward in general. I'm a happiest person now, and I'm in love. She married musician Loïk Gomez (aka BFRND) in 2017. "And maybe this is why my approach reflects that as well," she continues, "although my relationship with fashion has never changed: I've loved making clothes ever since. I was eight years old. It is my longest love relationship so far, to which I am very loyal, even though it has wronged me many times, "and adds a wink emoticon.
