The Balenciaga Fall Winter 2022 campaign presents new scandalous silhouettes of style, highlighting the soft allure of the Crush Bag and an unexpected transformation with the Trash Pouch.
At Balenciaga, it is par the course to expect the unexpected. Since the reins of the Spanish brand were passed onto creative director Demna in 2015, a mere utterance of the brand’s name would yield a raised eyebrow from any fashion maven. While it is not about whether the creations cause scandals and become the next big thing (when they often are anyway), Demna’s commitment to “destruct to create” has aged pretty well as the world becomes more and more like an echo chamber of recycled ideas.
Case in point is the emotive and season-shifting Balenciaga’s Fall Winter 2022 campaign, lensed by Daniel Roché, a Berlin-based photographer, and Barcelona-based director Mau Morgo. Their most recent collection of bags, which includes the Crush Bag, Swing Bag and Trash Pouch, are placed in extreme environments of hot and cold which recall the revered Winter 2022 show that paid respect to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine at the time.
As always, the collection nudges onlookers to think about the value of everyday objects using the most wide-reaching and luxurious platform (and spokespeople) possible — only time will tell how much more innovative Demna’s thought-provoking design statements will become in the years ahead.
The star of the lot, the Crush Bag, has the iconic Hourglass shape but is much softer to the touch. Held by one or two handles on opposite edges, its relaxed and crinkled (or quilted) leather is anything but an ode to Cristobal Balenciaga’s love for structured tailoring — a symbol of modern insouciance.
But the true scene-stealer of this show after the Cagole, Cagole Boot bag and the multi-layered Swing Bag has got to be the Trash Pouch, a glossy trash-bag-inspired luxury satchel. A calfskin-leather hold-all with short, contrast straps, the Trash Pouch comes in four colourways: black, white and red, blue and black, or yellow and black.
The folds near the drawstring also give the surface an irregular shine, but mostly beg the question of just how far Demna is going to go to turn nearly-free items into prized possessions that carry the price tag of at least four digits.
Regardless, the frivolity (and lack thereof) of this design mindset is what keeps fashion’s boundaries shifting, allowing for creativity to grow in height and width in every sense of the word. This season’s bag offerings from Balenciaga continue to usher in moments of the unforeseen for branded carriers, colouring the streets with sightings of surprising bags in motion.
Click here to catch up with our September 2022 issue.
RELATED ARTICLES
I’ll Meet You When the Flowers Bloom at Night
