Balenciaga’s Summer 2023 show at Paris Fashion Week has got fashion enthusiasts talking. What really happened there? We bring you the major highlights from the Balenciaga Mud Show.
Balenciaga Summer23 Mud Show
Kanye West opened the show
Rapper Kanye West opened the show in a leather biker jacket and oversized combat jacket that was square and oversized with multi-pocket pockets, as his kids and ex-wife, Kim Kardashian look on from the runway-side.
The show was set in a mud grave
The Balenciaga Mud Show was indeed muddy as the setting was a mud grave. The models literally cat-walked in mud.
Male models, baby carriers, and fake babies
Some of the male models walked carrying baby carriers and fake babies. This was Demna Gvasalia’s (Balenciaga’s creative director) own way of applying his aesthetic to the world he sees on the street — how he wants people to be liberated in their dressing.
Clothes were covered in mud as a form of adornment
“What is luxury? I’ve been dealing with that since I started. Is it like a cashmere turtleneck, or can it be anything? In my opinion, it can,” said Balenciaga’s creative director. Backstage, the creative director was wearing a sweatshirt with very real-looking mud-splatter adornment.
It rebelled against society’s ideas of right and wrong
The Balenciaga Mud Show was more of a message to society. The beginning was associated with the Russia-Ukraine war going on. It then faded into “a study of the identities and uniforms around which Demna’s work has always centered”.
Credits: Anders Christian Madsen/Vogue
