PINS AND NEEDLES

How Demna engineered the rise— and near-fall—of the house of Balenciaga.

- LAUREN COLLINS

A bare white room, smelling of nothing. Nervous coughs going around like the wave. It was eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning in March—the Mass hour, Balenciaga’s traditional slot on the Paris Fashion Week calendar—and editors, buyers, clients, and the odd quidnunc had gathered at the Carrousel du Louvre, a cavernous mall under the museum, to attend the presentation of the house’s Fall 2023 collection. The Business of Fashion was calling it Balenciaga’s “make-or-break” moment; the Times, “the single most fraught show of the season.” The brand was trying to recover from a pair of botched ad campaigns that, in December, had led to a wild farrago of accusations, including that it had sexualized children and condoned child abuse. On each seat sat a white card bearing a message from Demna, the brand’s artistic director. “In the last couple of months, I needed to seek shelter for my love affair with fashion,” he wrote, explaining that he’d found solace in darts and notches, shoulder lines and armholes. He concluded, “This is why fashion to me can no longer be seen as an entertainment, but rather as the art of making clothes.”