Vetements, a French fashion house founded by brothers - Demna and Guram Gvasalia – launched its first collection a mere 24 months ago. Two years and four seasons later the label has become known worldwide as one of the most current and exciting retailers of the moment. How is it they’ve so quickly achieved global recognition, and for that matter, respect enough that gained them an invitation to show at this July’s haute couture week?
As of yesterday, Vetements is the most recent brand to have been invited by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture to produce a collection worthy of couture week and thus the highest scrutiny. Could this be a response to the wave of bloggers that posed the bi-annual question ‘is haute couture dead?’, or perhaps an attempt to modernise and evolve the structure of today's couture? Either way, clothes as edgy and raw as the ones produced by Demna Gvasalia certainly juxtapose the usual ideals of the polished-to-perfection, Elie Saab style couture that we’re used to.
It seems possible to me that the allure of Vetements originates from the house's creative director, Demna Gvasalia - also the current creative director of Balenciaga. During an interview with The Telegraph, Gvasalia emitted an almost rockstar attitude toward the industry with a nonchalance that becomes increasingly respected in today's society, rather than what may be typically known as arrogance. When asked by interviewer, Kate Finnigan, 'what is [Gvasalia] trying to say with Vetements?', the frivolity of his reply only added to his sense of cool: '"Not really much" he shrugs' ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/demna-gvasalia-on-race-that-dhl-t-shirt-and-why-he-wouldnt-pay-f/ ).
This carefree nonchalance so clearly seen throughout his collections may work for ready-to-wear, but will the same be said for haute couture aw16, a season reliant on precision and care? Perhaps. Since although Vetements takes pride in its imprecision, Gvasalia was able to prove his intricacy skills with his debut collection for Balenciaga last season. He evidenced that Demna Gvasalia is not only capable of oversized rockstar, but of oversized elegance too. Industry critics raved about the success of the show and in Sarah Mower's, style.com, review she implied Balenciaga would be 'every woman's new label'.
When a fashion house is as eagerly anticipated and sought after as Vetements, there is no doubt that the public seek out opportunity to poke holes in such success. Whilst many questioned the legality of the now infamous ‘DHL’ logo t-shirt, one mistake was harder to justify: for the two years that Vetements have been producing clothes, only once in their history have they cast a model of non-white origin. The debut collection for Balenciaga may have been a hit with critics, yet it caused controversy by reenforcing stereotypes and failing to show any kind of diversity on the catwalk. When questioned about the issue during Kate Finnigan's interview, the creative director attempted to warrant his decisions with allusions to Donald Trump and his own Georgian background 'where [race] is not even an issue'. A statement that seems to have only puzzled us further.
But legal matters and catwalk diversity are not the company's only troubles. It is often the case that when something classed 'cool', becomes popular in society it loses its respected title: resulting in the most talked about clothes of the year being labelled with the dreaded 'mainstream' tag. It's ironic that if everyone is wearing it, it's no longer considered fashionable. Similar to when you find an edgy musician with only 6000 twitter followers but before you know it they've had three number 1s and are a judge on The Voice.
This week, Lorde decided via Twitter that 'Vetements is uncool now'. We can assume this was a response to the brand's apparent lack of diversity, however, Lorde could've have been saying what we've been thinking: that with the more people becoming aware of Vetements, the more it loses its cool and gains a whole new audience.
- IVD
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