Let's Not (Always) Go Back.
After Sarah Burton's debut at Givenchy and the recent hype of Pierpaolo's landing at Balenciaga, I fear the fashion community is blinded by unproductive nostalgia.
Fashion has a nostalgia problem. This isn’t something new, we all know this by now, and yet we can’t seem to stop those in charge from constantly engaging with it.
The recent Burton debut at Givenchy amplified this problem for me. In the shownote itself, she prominently stated her sentiment towards a slingshot-like motion, making it seem impossible for anything new and worthwhile to be created unless the past is appeased and pacified, unless we collectively acknowledge the past before we can even attempt anything new.
To go forward, you have to go back to the beginning. To me, that's about the atelier. It's the heart and soul of Givenchy.
Sarah Burton in the show note
This extremely limiting perspective enrages me. The question really is, what is the line between respect and meaningful? What is the contemporary Givenchy to us? Who is Hubert de Givenchy to us? Or were Clare Waight Keller and Ricardo Tisci more of the faces of Givenchy for many? The constant dedication, and almost forceful, whiplash-inducing look-back is burdensome, wasteful, almost. All too cliché.
This criticism, however, isn’t indicative of the quality of her work. If you’ve been following me, you would understand that I have massive amount of admiration for Burton, especially her ability to steer the McQueen brand to something truly her own, which I would like to think has a bigger influence on Sean McGirr than Alexander McQueen has on him, which is something that a lot of people actively choose to ignore in the name of protecting Lee’s prodigal legacy. I guess that’s another thing that fashion suffers from: the need to protect, the inability to let go, the unwillingness to admit that those who succeeded the brand can do better than the former, or even the founder. Cristóbal Balenciaga is undoubtedly legendary; almost every great couturier that you and I can name looked up to him, or at the very least gave him tremendous respect. Balenciaga was a one-of-a-kind artist, and we hope to preserve his name and reputation for as long as possible.
And then Demna Gvasalia, the enfant extrêmement terrible, stormed into the brand like Looney Tunes’ Tasmanian Devil, gutting the brand inside out, and IV dripped his Vetement absurdity into the elegant veins of Balenciaga that Nicolas Ghesquiere and Alexander Wang wouldn’t dare to mess with. Just like that, Balenciaga was reborn, catapulted into the absolute pinnacle of the Gen Z zeitgeist, wrapped in layers of shithousery, absolute genius, and the gargantuan sum of money that he brought to the brand each year. One crucial note, though, Demna has done an adequate job of reviving some of Balenciaga’s couture legacy. It is obvious that with RTW, he did not stick to the brand guideline, but with couture, he was quite a well-behaved student. So it is increasingly awkward for those who continue to emphasize that Demna shows no care for the brand.
Now that he is out and waltzing his way to another fashion powerhouse, Pierpaolo Piccioli from Valentino is being welcomed and inducted into the brand like a saviour. Sounds about right, Pierpaolo has done more than enough to show people that he will steer the Balenciaga ship back on track, back to elegance, or at least something more ‘respectful’ and serious. While I do not align with Valentino, I acknowledge Piccioli’s eye for interpretation and the ability to innovate within the brand’s comfort zone.
So the same question here is: why are we egging on the sentiment of going back to ‘respecting Cristobal Balenciaga’ when Demna has shown us that the contemporary market hardly has room for the likes of OG Balenciaga, and being unfathomably different has the potential of catapulting the brand forward? On top of that, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino was, as loosely mentioned, a bit reserved; his innovations are very much within our imagination of what Valentino should be and will be. With this in mind, won’t this extrapolation hint towards a relatively mundane Balenciaga in the future if he actually ended up following in Cristobal Balenciaga’s footsteps?
This is all speculation; however, it doesn’t serve much value in the end. I guess I am increasingly tired of seeing Creative Directors debut by conservatively ‘going back’ and ‘paying homage.’ By going past all previous Creative Directors and landing at an ancient idea of what the brand was, and inadvertently diminishing all other designers’ work at the brand, which contributed to the making of the brand’s contemporary image, how can this sit right with anyone?
No need to constantly go back to the very beginning is what I am trying to say, and brand heritage should be treated as a palimpsest, not a clean slate every time something new happens.