Balenciaga

Balenciaga pieces from their colorful space-age sneakers to their simplistic yet brilliant triangle duffle bags are thoughtfully and thoroughly designed…

By: Moe Marks

While they may have an utterly unique and forward-thinking brand, Balenciaga’s practices regarding sustainability have a long way to go. Balenciaga is a ready-to-wear fashion house whose avant-garde design solutions test the ideals of feminine beauty. While the clothing may be ready-to-wear, there are few that ever get ready in one of Balenciaga’s highly designed pieces. There is a particular person that it takes to wear Balenciaga, to make sure it doesn’t wear you. The highly designed showroom pieces are seen mostly on today’s celebrities and being fantasized about by today’s fashionforward youth.

Photo by: Moe Marks

The youngins who aspire to be a part of this brand pay for overpriced t-shirts and merchandise with the company name, to give them the feeling of prestige that one can only imagine comes with one of their less purchasable garments. Unlike the higher quality items these branded items are produced at a much larger scale. It is as if there is a fast-fashion company within the design company itself. This, in turn, causes items to be produced with defects and even left unsold creating a fair bit of waste. The brand is consciously moving forward in its attempt at sustainability by not only reducing physical garment waste but also CO2 emissions, although still has quite a long way to go.

Design Miami

This past week Balenciaga showed their sustainable piece at Design Miami. If they were going for minimalistic, they may have overdone it a bit. Ironic right? Oddly, Balenciaga’s display was both sparse and haphazardly thrown together. The booth appeared to lack intention, displaying a singular item and accenting the piece with harsh lighting and an agreeable gray background. Maybe they didn’t want to distract from the one and only thing they had on display. Maybe they threw the display together at the last minute. Whether or not it was intentional, it was disappointing. More thought was expected from the fashion brand. They certainly did consume less than the neighboring booths by doing nothing but painting the box they were to set up in a dejected grey. Their one and only piece showed was highlighted in harsh lighting that felt more like a prison cell than a design fair booth.

Recyclable plastic

The plastic couch on display was filled with discarded merchandise to give their branded yet unwanted clothing a new life. Although I am not so sure how long the life of the couch will actually last. For it looked like the plastic was coming apart at the seams. It seemed to me just another way to slap their company name on something to give it value. Greatly hope that the plastic is at least recyclable for when they have to throw it out.

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