MANIFESTO

#61

ART NOW

BALENCIAGA SS22

2021.06.11

Clones SS22 Collection
by MADDALENA IODICE

What’s real and what’s fake? The Hacker Project behind Demna Gvasalia and Alessandro Michele.

Technology creates alternate realities and identities, a world of digital clones.
Balenciaga’s Spring 22 presentation takes into account our shifting senses of reality through the lens of technology. We see our world through a filter—perfected, polished, conformed, photoshopped. We no longer decipher between fake and deepfake.
Digital clones, photogrammetry-captured, CG-scanned face, 3D modeling: fashion vocabulary has changed. And this is exactly what Demna Gvsalia showed on his white runway where every look in the Spring 22 collection is seen on Eliza Douglas, an artist who has either opened or closed every show and appeared in most campaigns for the past several years. The models marched down a minimalist runway to a sci-fi-inspired soundtrack composed by BFRND and an AI voiceover reciting the lyrics of “La Vie En Rose.”

While experimenting with the power and limits of technology, the show also poses a crucial question on the ideas of authenticity, counterfeiting, and appropriation within the fashion industry, which takes shape in The Hacker Project. The venture presents pieces that merge Gucci and Balenciaga House codes: conceptual interpretations of Gucci’s recognizable signatures as Balenciaga products. Overall, tailoring is deconstructed and engineered to sit off the body in various silhouettes. Trenches, coat dresses, and bombers are mostly reversible, giving the same garment two aesthetic functions.

MAISON ALAÏA

A STORY BEHIND THE CLOTHES

2023.03.27

WHERE FASHION AND CREATION MEET ART AND BEAUTY

 

Pieter Mulier for Alaïa returns to embody the Maison’s unique history in a personal and intimate artistic vision that is carried away by human emotions and connections.

fall winter 23

CHANEL

2023.03.08

THE CAMELLIA IS MORE THAN A THEME

 

The winter camellia flower runs through the Fall Winter 23 collection seeding little signs of joy and romance. Virginie Viard previews the collection with a short film and photo series inspired by the famous movie Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?”.

MIU MIU

WAYS OF LOOKING

2023.03.08

LOOKING IS A WINDOW TO THINKING 

 

Miuccia Prada for Miu Miu presents the co-ed Fall Winter 23 collection featuring familiar garments that encapsulate gestures and movements around the figure.

LOUIS VUITTON

WHAT IS FRENCH STYLE

2023.03.07

A REFINED AND PARADOXICAL ENIGMA

 

An open book that chronicles Nicholas Ghesquière’s Fall Winter 23 collection at Louis Vuitton and asks the characteristics of French style. A question that remains unanswered, an evolving fashion with infinite fascination.

collection

HERMÈS

2023.03.06

INCANDESCENCE AND SENSUALITY 

 

Hermès Fall Winter 23 collection brings the same features and colors of women’s different hair styles to the runways as a symbol of elegance and femininity. Like the manes, the lines of the garments follow the silhouette and take shape as they walk.