Most of us saw clips of Demna Gvasalia’s debut couture show for Balenciaga on Instagram yesterday, but this morning at Vogue’s Forces of Fashion conference, we got a rare treat. The show was replayed in its entirety—with no soundtrack, just whooshes of fabric—before Gvasalia joined Vogue Runway’s global director Nicole Phelps to discuss the collection. From his decision to omit music (“I wanted the clothes to speak for themselves”) to the intricacies of his couture jeans, he answered questions about his couture debut and shared what he learned about himself in the process.
“What I love most about fashion and making clothes, it’s the way the clothes make us feel,” he said. “It’s the way they transform us… I think that’s the magic that, in ready-to-wear, is hard to experience today, because we do too many products in a very short period of time. But couture actually is the place in which that magic is preserved. I learned that through couture, I feel at peace with fashion.”
