DEMNA UNMASKED

He's the most influential designer of the past decade. He's also the most controversial. Now the creative director of Balenciaga is exploring a surprising source of inspiration: happiness. GQ's Samuel Hine witnesses the dawn of Demna's new era, in Paris, New York, and Shanghai. Photographs by Jason Nocito.

- Samuel Hine

PARIS

It's early spring in Paris, and Demna, the enigmatic creative director of Balenciaga, leaps up from his chair. He's in a bright showroom, examining a slouchy model with a mullet. Balenciaga's winter 2024 runway show is in two days, and Demna has been holed up here for hours making final adjustments to each look that will hit the catwalk.

Have you seen any documentaries about couture houses? You'll find a more dynamic atmosphere in a monastery. But this showroom, stretching out beneath the vaulted ceilings of a former hospital built in the 17th century, looks kind of like an adult slumber party, soundtracked by earsplitting techno. Following Demna's lead, nearly every person in the room is wearing designer pajama sweats.

I'm asked not to disturb Demna while he's locked in, so I stand to one side and observe the creative choreography at the center of the most radical $2 billion-plus luxury fashion house in Paris.

The collection, I'm told, is deeply personal to Demna, full of flourishes cribbed from his own closet and references to his journey as a fashion designer, which started in unlikely circumstances in Sovietera Georgia and has led to here, where the 43-year-old designer has his fingers on the temples of his shaved head like he's contemplating the secrets of nuclear fission. There's not much to the zip-up sweater and jeans hanging off the model's frame, but Demna's intense focus is understandable. Following a period when Balenciaga went viral for all the wrong reasons, Demna is hoping to cap off a career-defining rebound with another reminder of just how far he has pushed fashion in the past decade.