22nd July 2021 Demna Gvasalia, the Creative Director of Balenciaga, discusses his first Haute Couture collection for the house, and the revival of Balenciaga Haute Couture.
Fifty-three years after the original Balenciaga salon was closed with Cristóbal Balenciaga’s final and 49th show, the company’s Haute Couture has now been revived for Autumn Winter 2021/22 with its 50th collection by Demna and hats by Philip Treacy.
The show was presented on Avenue George V in front of an audience of famous faces, including François-Henri Pinault of the Kering luxury group.
Demna with Suzy in Paris earlier this year
Demna spoke to me about his tough, unsettling early life; the start of his career, working in Antwerp, Belgium, with Martin Margiela; and then his introduction to high-level fashion at Louis Vuitton in Paris.
As if the exceptional story of Cristóbal Balenciaga were not enough, what about Demna Gvasalia’s development as a designer who started his life in war-torn Georgia and is now a highly creative force in Paris fashion today?
He and his brother Guram took a bold course by launching Vetements in 2014. An aggressively anti-high-fashion company, its ‘cheap’ bags and basic clothes emblazoned with the logos of pedestrian companies such as DHL, stunned the fashion world – not least when Demna joined Balenciaga the following year.
In my podcast, the designer discusses his play on the classic with the strange and elegant: massive sneakers worn with evening clothes or Philip Treacy‘s ‘mushroom’ hats. This is what makes Balenciaga unique among its fashion rivals, and makes the return of Haute Couture to a Parisian house all the more dramatic, especially when Christian Dior called Cristóbal “the Master of us all”.
At the age of 40, the designer has channelled his disturbing and ever-changing childhood into the calm of creativity. The idea of bringing back to life the haute couture of a historic brand has proved daring – and smart.
Fendi reconnected with its Roman roots for its Autumn/Winter 2021 Haute Couture collection, in a truly stunning display masterminded by Silvia Venturini Fendi and British designer Kim Jones, Fendi’s Artistic Director of Women’s Haute Couture, Ready-to-Wear and Fur. (He is also the Creative Director of Dior Menswear, so is the artistic force behind two household-name brands at LVMH.)
Silvia and Kim wanted to work together on a film, and where better than at Cinecittà, the legendary Roman film studio known as “Hollywood on the Tiber”? Its hallowed halls have nurtured a long list of famous directors who have changed the course of cinematic history – including Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese – and such beloved films as La Dolce Vita and Roman Holiday.
Luca Guadagnino directed the models on set in Rome via Zoom while he was on location for another film in Ohio
Joining this roll call of Cinecittà’s cinematic greats was Luca Guadagnino, director of I Am Love, A Bigger Splash and Call Me by Your Name, who was commissioned by Silvia and Kim to collaborate with them on their Haute Couture film, while Kate Moss served as narrator. Currently in Ohio working on another project, Guadagnino directed Fendi’s models over Zoom – the future is now! I was invited on set to watch him scrutinise on screen the movements of Moss and her daughter Lila Grace, 18, as well as Christy Turlington, Amber Valletta and Mariacarla Boscono, as they walked with slow grandeur, their dresses sweeping along a set composed of pale-coloured terraces and a backdrop of historic Roman buildings.
Kim wanted Guadagnino to capture the unique spirit of Rome immortalised by Pier Paolo Pasolini, but through a Fendi-inspired lens. “Rome is a fascinating city because it has so many pasts – and I was drawn to Pasolini because I have always been inspired by his vision of the world,” Kim explained. “He is something of an outsider in Roman history, but one whose voice remains constant.”
Amber Valletta models a marble-effect gown for Kim Jones’ collection for Fendi Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2021
“Pasolini observed Rome become modern, and that is what is interesting to me: Connecting eras, the old with the new, the past with the present.”
“I really love this collection and it is nice to have it as a considered, planned film,” Kim said. “I know it will last longer. Fashion is so fast now, especially when you’re on social media. You click through, refresh – and it is history. Fashion should last longer.”
“Rome is not the fashion capital of Italy, but it is the couture capital, so it is nice to celebrate it and bring in the cinema, which Silvia loves so much,” Kim explained. “For the first time, I am working with the family while they are alive, which by all present analysis is very interesting,” Kim said. “I look at the pillars of what the Fendi house stands for – I don’t think about myself and then I work within what the brand is,” he explained of his process. “I have had so much time to reflect in the last year when we were locked in our houses for so long. I did a lot of preparation work and thinking about things.”
“It’s so interesting to hear all the stories about mother and grandmother, and how it’s evolved,” he continued. “It’s very much female-dominated. So I’m listening to all the women in the room when we are working.”
Silvia Venturini Fendi with her daughter, Delfina Delettrez, who designed the jewellery for the collection
Silvia Venturini Fendi was equally enthusiastic about the change in creative direction following the death of Fendi’s previous master couturier, the late Karl Lagerfeld. “It’s exciting to see the evolution of a brand that is almost 100 years old,” Silvia said. “I like to see things with my own eyes, but it is interesting to see how somebody else interprets it. Through Kim, I can see different aspects, so it is exciting.”
As the models glowed like ancient Roman goddesses in their trompe l’oeil embellished dresses, on which Jones managed to suggest the immortal allure of Italian stone, Fendi’s CEO Serge Brunschwig enthused, “We are proud of what we are doing because it is fantastic workmanship and there is all this beauty behind it.”
The other Kim – Kim Kardashian – joined me at the private view. “I am always fascinated by how Kim can work on so many projects that are so different, and how your brain would have to turn on and off,” she said. “He goes from Dior Men’s to this – super-elegant and feminine. I can imagine doing a couture show is a lot of pressure, but it must be great to be so creative.”
Suzy with Kim Kardashian, who flew in from LA to support her friend Kim Jones and watch the action on set
The distinctive jewellery for the collection was designed by Delfina Delettrez Fendi, Silvia’s daughter, on the encouragement of Silvia and Kim.
“This is not high jewellery,” she said. “The preciousness comes not so much from a precious material, but [from the fact that] everything is handmade and unique. I worked with old Italian marble – like you see the statues made of. I did a mosaic both in marble and mother of pearl – which is something which has not been done in jewellery before.”
The last wise words came from Silvia, who worked with Karl Lagerfeld for her entire life. “I think Karl saw me when I was born – he was like a family presence – it was like having a sixth brother after five sisters! It’s really interesting to this new Fendi woman come to life in Kim’s eyes.”
Demna Gvasalia’s powerful collection for Balenciaga opened to a spooky version of Edith Piaf’s ballad, ‘La Vie en Rose’, as a soundtrack. When this song about finding love after trying times was first released at the end of the World War Two, it was adopted as an anthem for hope. Was this Demna’s metaphor for our post-lockdown landscape?
This second instalment of Balenciaga’s partnership with Gucci’s Creative Director Alessandro Michele for Spring/Summer 2022, ‘Clones’, was a virtual show in more ways than one. Not only was I watching it online, but I also noticed that hardly anyone in the ‘audience’ – all of whom were dressed top-to-toe in black – was taking pictures. That’s because the show was deep faked, with the same model wearing every outfit on a clinically white runway.
An evening gown from the ‘Clones’ collection by Demna Gvasalia for Balenciaga, Spring/Summer 2022
“Technology creates alternative realities and identifies a world of digital clones,” the designer explained when asked about his premise. “Between unedited and altered, genuine and counterfeit, tangible and conceptual, fact and fiction, fake and deep fake.”
The clothes were real, however, and the mood was for pretty patterns but with a tangible sense of toughness. The collection was polished and focused, and seemed to bring Balenciaga back to its Spanish roots but replanted in Paris. It was based on fine cutting and the ability to present men’s and women’s style without a male/female divide.
There were references to last year’s collaboration with Gucci, with Gucci’s double-G monograms becoming double-Bs, and a focus on accessories, especially footwear and graffiti handbags.
The anger seems to have trickled out of the designer’s anarchic spirit, and is now replaced by strength – a vision perhaps best summed up as “sweet and sour”.
Have you ever wondered how clothes end up in shops? Buyers descend on trade fairs once or twice a year to purchase stock to fill their shelves. And it may come as a surprise that not all the clothes come from the runways of Paris and Milan: You’ll see peacock males lining up to display the latest looks in Florence at the historic Fortezza da Basso, where the Pitti Uomo men’s fashion trade fairunderscores that powerful Italian spirit of past and present embodied by this historic city.
Behind this world-renowned trade fair is Raffaello Napoleone, its CEO, who spoke to me about celebrating this year’s 100th edition of Pitti Uomo and shared his thoughts on the post-pandemic landscape for the fashion industry.
Raffaello Napoleone, CEO of PItti Immagine and Italian fashion crusader
To get back into post-Covid action, the premier men’s trade fair will ‘double-track’, with a digital as well as real-life fashion week. The digital platform, Pitti Connect, was founded by the visionary CEO 12 years ago. Napoleone is also the CEO of Pitti Immagine – a not-for-profit Italian organisation to promote the fashion industry and ‘Made in Italy’ marque – and heads up Pitti Bimbo for children; Pitti Filati for yarns; and is one of the founders of the Polimoda Fashion School in Florence, set up with Linda Loppa (former Head of the Fashion Department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp) to help preserve the Italian fashion industry.
In teaching and in fashion, Napoleone always looks to the future, and is excited at how current powerful changes to sustainability are transforming Italy’s attitudes to production and consumption.
Can the physical format of a trade fair and – above all – its interaction with its audience really be revived? Napoleone says “Si!” and has stretched his wings to include trade fairs of artisan perfumes, food, and homewares. They all prove, post-Covid, that growth starts at home.
As she revisits her story, three generations have now worn the wrap dress Diane von Furstenberg invented to project the sensual, dynamic and appealing woman she always wanted to be: “A woman in charge!”
For Episode 6 of Season 4 of the Creative Conversations podcast, she tells me just how many projects she is still developing today while that famous dress that started it all has now achieved 15 million sales.
Her new book, Own It – The Secret to Life (published by Phaidon) – sums up her spirit with its title. To be a feminist and a philanthropist seems like enough already, but DVF, as she is universally known, takes both elements of her life and makes them signs of strength. From supporting American Vice President, Kamala Harris, to a Statue of Liberty museum in New York, the designer has followed the words of her mother, who spent 13 months at Auschwitz. When she recovered, she said to her daughter, “God saved my life so that I can give you life.”
Diane also has projects with her husband, Barry Diller, including the Diller von Furstenberg Family Foundation. Mr. Diller is behind the vision for the brand new floating park and open-air theatre on the Hudson called the Little Island, designed by Thomas Heatherwick.
But above all, the fashion designer-turned-art supporter and fundraiser understands the importance of legacy. She describes it as what we leave behind that others can use. And a last word on the DVF mantra on the subject of packing, since life is a journey. “When we know how to pack, we know how to live – pack lightly, live lightly,” she says.
I hope you enjoy the podcast. Do subscribe and follow – just head to iTunes to rate and review. I do love to read your comments.
Witty, wise and tirelessly energetic, British fashion-accessories designer Anya Hindmarch has always had an open mind and wide-open heart and is happy to share news of her latest enthusiasms.
Anya has taken over an empty, post-pandemic street in London’s Knightsbridge and transformed it into Anya Village, offering the things she loves and believes in – from her famous handbags to sustainably sourced and produced items. Visit Pont Street, SW1 to explore the Anya Café, Salon, Village Hall, and shops.
Suzy with Anya in her Knightsbridge atelier
She has also just published a book, If in Doubt, Wash Your Hair!, which is filled with advice on how to be happy. Her words are profound, defining the character of a woman whose life would be considered quite a challenge, even when she created a business at age 18, returning from Italy carrying a handbag that would change her life.
Five children later – three inherited from her widowed husband and two of their own – Anya continues with her global fashion-accessories business, with dollops of fun along the way and a CBE from the Queen.
Tune in to the podcast for her insights and enthusiasm, and if you enjoy it please do subscribe, rate and review. I do love to read your comments and feedback.
Dries van Noten talks to Suzy about his more than 30-year career, which launched in 1986 with his own collection of menswear. Since then he has flourished, and is celebrated around the world for his sophisticated and poetic shows, presented in Paris, in which he marries art and craft.
Suzy with Dries van Noten outside his studio in Antwerp
Dries reminisces with Suzy about being one of the “Antwerp Six” – the group of star students who graduated in 1980 and 1981 from the strong-minded school, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, under the tutelage of its Head of Fashion, the intellectually rigorous Linda Loppa. Together with fellow “Sixers” Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs and Marina Yee, the seeds of contemporary style were planted in Belgium and gained an international cult following and hugely influential reach.
Known for his vibrant prints, floral inspiration and painterly use of colour, Dries van Noten’s collections are a balance of dreams and reality, and many of his collections – such as the magnetic collaboration with haute couture genius Christian Lacroix for Spring/Summer 2020 Ready-to-Wear – mark fashion history.
Catch up with the boundary-breaking creative here.
Our dear friend Alber Elbaz passed away on the 25th April, another victim of Covid-19. Over the next few weeks, so much will be written about this exceptional and thoughtful designer, who genuinely loved and supported women. As a tribute to Alber, and as a gesture to the remarkable person he was, we are re-issuing the podcast we recorded together nearly a year ago.
When we decided to launch a series of podcasts during the first lockdown, Alber, with his usual sweet and generous enthusiasm, offered himself as an interviewee. Yes, he would be happy to discuss ideas together.
Suzy and Alber Elbaz relax in a Paris park after the Maria Grazia Chiuri show for Dior (October 2016). Photograph by Soren Jepsen
A sense of fun and absolute dedication to his work were the cornerstones of Alber’s life. Witty, whimsical and wise, he put women first. From 2001, for 14 powerful years he reinvigorated and illuminated the French house of Lanvin as its Creative Director, dressing Meryl Streep in gold lamé for her Best Actress Award at the 2012 Oscars for her role as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady”. He was ahead of his time in using an eco-certified fabric. In Meryl Streep’s words, “Alber’s dresses [for Lanvin] are the only ones, when I wear them, that I feel like myself in, or even a better version of her.”
He dressed so many stars for the Academy Awards. He glamourised, in a modern way, Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore and Gwyneth Paltrow. But I saw less “go-go Hollywood” and more of Alber’s dedication to his work – always with a funny side. When we went to his favourite restaurant in Paris on the Left Bank with his partner Alex Koo, I always ended up dabbing my eyes from tears of laughter.
Now, I am crying for Alber himself, taken away so cruelly by Covid-19, when he was so health conscious and a self-styled hypochondriac. This was such a tragic end, just as he was starting an exciting new project, “Alber Elbaz, AZ Factory”, with Swiss luxury group Richemont.
Johann Rupert, Chairman of Richemont, said in a statement: “We are devastated. I have lost not only a colleague but a beloved friend. Alber had a richly deserved reputation as one of the industry’s brightest and most beloved figures.”
In 2020, when Alber re-emerged with AZ Factory, he continued to win our hearts and minds by offering easy clothes, bold jewels, bags and shoes – all suited to a varied audience of women.
Everything Alber became involved in was a hive of creativity and charm. When he generously accepted the challenge of designing the front cover of a book of my writings for Vogue, to be presented at the 2019 Condé Nast International luxury conference, he illustrated me as a rather rotund version of the Mona Lisa.
My deepest condolences to Alber’s family, and to Alex Koo, his partner for life.
I hope you will listen to our podcast with Alber and think of all he achieved and how much he adored and supported women. The best way to remember Alber is to hear him speak – he was such joyous company.
Michael Kors is celebrating his 40 years in fashion, and I just had a preview of his special anniversary collection from across the pond: It features a specially curated selection of iconic pieces of the Michael Kors label.
Kors is marking his four decades with a thoughtful reappraisal of his “greatest hits”, which include dressing stars from stage, screen, and state, from Jennifer Lopez to Angelina Jolie and Michelle Obama, whose bare shoulders the designer brought to the fore.
Michael Kors with Suzy in 2019
Michael spoke to me about building his own label in the 1980s and designing for Celine in Paris from 1998 to 2004, before expanding his brand in the US, and ultimately across the world. He has not only built a fashion business but also a powerful luxury accessories empire, under the name Capri Holdings Limited. This conglomerate includes his own mighty label as well as Jimmy Choo and Versace.
The Covid pandemic has brought a thoughtful response from Michael Kors, who is the first American designer to miss the September timetable of New York Fashion Week shows and move his own presentations to October/November. His insightful vision on reducing the speed and amount of fashion in a post-Covid era is enlightening.
Our talk is a chance to hear the real Michael Kors, and to learn that feeding the hungry is as important to him as dressing the famous. Tune in here for more.
To mark Fashion Revolution Week and celebrate the first anniversary since the launch of the Creative Conversations podcast series, the first episode of Season Four opens with Orsola de Castro, the fashion activist who founded the Fashion Revolution campaign in 2013, which has led the global movement for change within the fashion industry – from sustainability to working practices.
For Orsola de Castro, all you need is love. Love for fashion, and love for all beautiful things – that last. Talking to us in 2021, the last year has been a lesson about lasting. Or, as she puts it, “Re-wearing your clothes can be a revolutionary act.”
Orsola de Castro, fashion activist and founder of the Fashion Revolution movement
Her new book is titled Loved Clothes Last (Penguin Random House) and is a passionate ode to the rebirth of our old fashion friends, lurking in closets and stuffed into drawers. Up-cycling is so much more than a fashionable trend. For Orsola, it was triggered by the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh in 2013, when an eight-storey building filled with clothing workers collapsed and caused 1,134 deaths.
A shocked Orsola asked herself why people demand ever-cheaper, disposable clothes, and what could be done to make a lasting difference. Her response was to found fashion‘s largest global activism movement, Fashion Revolution, to change the way the industry works and change ur attitude to clothes.
April 19th-25th marks Fashion Revolution Week, when more than 100 countries come together to take responsibility, remember the lives lost, and demand that no one should die in service of the industry.
In our conversation, Orsola’s urgent enthusiasm reminds us that we can all be fashion revolutionists. Our clothes deserve new lives, instead of being thrown away.
Her book is a mix of practical repair with thoughtful and passionate commitment to fabric and treatment that prolongs their life.
To participate in the eighth Fashion Revolution week, wherever you are in the world, spread the word and educate yourself. Let’s believe that today’s fashion and textile industry can change, evolve, and become more transparent.
Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski is the Creative Director of Hermès, a luxury brand with a deep history, founded on horse saddles, but now famous for its neckties, handbags and increasingly for its discreetly elegant clothes.
It is not just a mighty and classy brand, it is also a family business of six generations.
The Co-Chairs of Hermès today are two cousins: CEO Axel Dumas, and Vice-President and Artistic Director Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the son of Jean-Louis Dumas, who revolutionised Hermès and grew it as an international luxury company.
The current designer has become part of the family. Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, whose name reflects the variety of her background, talks to Suzy about how she is developing the brand as “quiet luxury”. Call her a purist or a gentle spirit, the designer’s aim is to move the brand forward, with imagination and intelligence.
Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski-Cybulski has been Creative Director of Hermes since 2014, having previously designed for The Row, Celine and Maison Martin Margiela
The artisanal roots have run deep in the house of Hermès since 1837, with over 20 artisan craft workers now producing, as well as Ready to Wear, fine-jewellery, lipstick, furniture, perfume, watches and, of course, those famous handbags.
The company, known for its house colour of warm orange, which is not listed with Pantone, maintains a responsible ethos to the planet, ensuring traceability, certification protecting and preservation. The Hermès artisans also work on ‘petit h’ – a concept that ingeniously transforms remnants of leather, silk, crystal, and porcelain, horsehair, buttons and metal into brand new objects.
You can listen to Nadège talk about her timeless and witty design, her approach to colour and form, what Hermès stands for, and how its horsy history has always galloped ahead in fashion, making Nadège an exceptional designer for a famous brand, here.
Sterling Ruby explains to Suzy why he was invited to take part in Paris Haute Couture with his label S.R. STUDIO. CA. LA. COUTURE and how he went from a construction site to constructing haute couture, crossing the boundaries of art by using fashion as an artistic medium of self-expression.
Sterling Ruby photographed in California
Coming from a hippy and punk background, Sterling Ruby talks about the challenges he faces as an artist and designer in achieving an urban feel, working on the surface of materials with bleach, minerals and hand dying – pushing the boundaries between artistic mediums.
The artist first “dipped his brushes” in the fashion world when Raf Simons and he met and forged a relationship, which took them to Dior and Calvin Klein and beyond on a route of Americana.
Hear from the artist himself on his approach to couture and his rise to fashion through the art world here.
