Michele: I think also that every single designer sees something different in the same brand. I think that creative work is what you see through your eyes. It’s like ... when I think about Gucci, I was trying to find the most crazy piece of the company. Because after a lot of years, Gucci for me was, in a way, flat. Without soul. But in the archive you can find a lot of quirky soul. They created a lot of strange kinds of objects. I think that my job could be easy, because we don’t have a ready-to-wear story, so you can invent what you want. It’s just about travel, suitcases, leather goods. But I was obsessed with this idea of the jet set that, honestly, I don’t think exists anymore. I don’t want to talk with something that is completely dead. But now, the street — I’m obsessed, like you, with the street.

Gvasalia: Because it’s also something you see.

Michele: Yes.

Gvasalia: And you see it through your filter. I think the normality, in a way, has so many ways of being inspiring. And you can do so much with it actually. With what you see.

Fury: It’s challenging, too. How can you make normality interesting?

Gvasalia: And then also clothes that are wearable that people desire. That they say, “I need to have that thing.” I think that’s also something that, somehow ... you do a show and then in the store, half of those pieces wouldn’t be there. Which doesn’t make any sense. To really have this kind of honesty.

Fury: Traditionally, very little of what designers create for the shows actually winds up in stores for sale. It just exists to be photographed. Is it a vital part of your creative process that the pieces in the runway show will be the bulk of what’s produced to sell?

Michele: Yes. Reality is a huge piece of our work. I think that fashion, for a long time, has been in a prison. Without freedom. I think that without freedom, with rules, it’s impossible to create a new story. I mean, I’ve worked in fashion for a long time — but I understand that after years and years of product, product, product. It’s something that kills everything. Also the market. A product without an idea, a soul, an attitude. If you don’t give people the idea that they belong to a tribe ...

Gvasalia: They need that.

Michele: They need that.

Gvasalia: And that’s very much what’s happening now, I think. It’s very much what’s happening with what you do. And in such a short period of time, also. This is quite amazing — it’s ­actually a virtue of our time, on one hand, because everything is so fast. People need to belong. Identifying them, as, well, “We’re part of that.” For me I have this very much at Vetements right now, but at Balenciaga the challenge is to create that. It’s a following in a way.