As one fashion month finishes, news breaks that sets the scene for an industry shake-up next season. Balenciaga has announced the appointment of Demna Gvasalia, the 34-year-old designer of cult label Vetements, as the successor to Alexander Wang, who recently left the label after three years.



This is a daring and intriguing appointment. The fashion house founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga in Paris in 1937 is known for understated refinement: the soft curve of a cocoon coat, the precision of a bracelet-length sleeve, the cool femininity of a ballerina neckline. In Paris last week, at a Chinese restaurant in the scruffy Parisian quarter of Belleville, Vetements opened their show with a yellow T-shirt branded with the courier firm DHL and closed with a denim cut off micro mini skirt.

Alexa Chung, who recently declared herself “obsessed” with Vetements, is just one of its insider fashion fans. But even more radical than the aesthetic is the philosophy that Gvasalia brings. At Vetements, he is part of a “design collective” that deconstructs and remodels existing clothes in a deliberately non-precious way, and eschews the notion of one celebrity designer. “Fashion is so overpopulated and oversupplied with ideas that at some point in the future … the fame of a designer will not be able to assure the credibility of their work,” the collective told Tank magazine last year. “At least, that is what we hope.”

Alexander Wang, who has left Balenciaga. Photograph: Van Sarki/Guardian

This is evidence of a new and radical direction for fashion. The turn-of-the-century boom of the luxury industry was predicated on a strategy of playing on heritage and history, with young designers mining the archives of their predecessors for “codes” and “DNA” to repackage for new customers – but this has run its course, as every fashion trend does. Saint Laurent and Gucci have recently been shaken up by young designers who have ripped up the rule book and created a whole new look for their house. At Saint Laurent, Hedi Slimane now dresses scruffy drummers and their stoner girlfriends rather than the Left Bank elite. At Gucci, Alessandro Michele has abandoned killer heels and status handbags in favour of kooky loafers and plastic hair barrettes. The two brands are currently the two bestselling labels on Net-a-Porter.

A model on the Vetements catwalk. Photograph: Pixelformula/REX Shutterstock

Saint Laurent and Gucci are owned by Kering, which is understandably keen to apply the same formula to Balenciaga. The 2012 appointment of Wang was daring because of his youth and American-streetwear aesthetic, but the designer seemed overly polite and reverential in the role, and the pairing never set the fashion world alight. In statements about the new appointment, Kering’s bosses sound bumptiously confident about its boldness. The group’s president, François-Henri Pinault, praised Gvasalia’s “unique approach to the profession, marked by a sociological observation of the wardrobe’s essentials,” while Balenciaga CEO Isabelle Guichot told Womenswear Daily they had chosen someone “capable of reshuffling the cards”.

Gvasalia will present his first collection for Balenciaga in Paris in March 2016.