Reviewing Demna's Last Balenciaga Show (Balenciaga 54th Couture Collection Review)

Today was the grand finale of everything Demna has brought to Balenciaga over the past decade: his last couture show before he officially hands over the keys of the house to Pierpaolo Piccioli, leaves Paris, and moves on to Gucci. “I feel like it’s my coming out today,” he laughed backstage, dressed in a washed-out gray hoodie, Balenciaga cap, and camouflage pants. “I never came out after my shows… But this time, it was like I kind of owed it to me, and to Balenciaga, and all these things that we did here [for] 10 years. And,” he added, “it just felt like I could not do better than this.” And, oh, what a Demna-community throwing of the silhouettes it was! Kim Kardashian as a replica Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, wearing Taylor’s actual diamonds. Isabelle Hupert, hamming it up as the ultra-Parisienne d’un certain age, swinging a lady-bag from the crook of her elbow in a pair of black corseted trousers and a couture-ified up-sculpted turtleneck. Eva Herzigova, full-throttle super-modeling a neon yellow padded-hip, twisted satin bustier gown. Even Demna’s husband BFRND, slouching through in an oversized business suit and insanely elongated derbies, carrying a sinister black leather laptop case. And as the parade—conceived, as Demna put it, as a study of the dress codes of “la Bourgeoisie”—proceeded, all the people who work for Balenciaga, the creative director included, spoke their names on the soundtrack. That was a nice personal thank-you to those who had abette