Balenciaga or the trap of postmodernism

The legend of Cristóbal Balenciaga grows stronger the further Balenciaga, the brand he founded in 1937, distances itself from the principles of the Spanish couturier . Today, the two Balenciagas have little in common: while museums venerate Cristóbal's original creations, Omar Montes appears on El Hormiguero wearing a tracksuit jacket with an inscription on the chest: Balenciaga. This isn't a metaphor: it happened last year.

Owned by the French holding company Kering since 2001, Balenciaga now operates as an aspirational luxury brand: relentless product launches, an obsession with virality, a constant need for attention, and little concern for the quality of its products . Cristóbal Balenciaga did just the opposite. He would never have thought of putting his name on the back of a cotton T-shirt. He certainly would have liked to know that such a shirt sells for almost 700 euros. Jackets like the one Omar Montes wore in El Hormiguero are around 2,000 euros. Similar garments abound in places like gyms, nightclubs, and on Instagram. Many are fake. Kering doesn't break down the turnover figures for its brands, so it's hard to quell the rumors that Balenciaga isn't profitable. It paints a lot of pictures, but sells little.

Fashion expert Eugene Rabkin isn't the only one to suggest that the cultural presence of brands like Balenciaga isn't correlated with their business. Rabkin cites Daniel J. Boorstin, one of the theorists of hyperreality and postmodernism. For Rabkin and Boorstin (and me), more and more products have become simulacra, packaging, symbols, and, worst of all, "experiences." They're all post-something or hyper-something. They have no meaning in and of themselves, but rather "mean" things. A jacket is its logo, a T-shirt is the message "I paid 695 euros for this shit," and a film is its trailer , the viewing event (this is true; it happened this week) or the plastic dinosaur exhibition that will make the infographic dinosaur movie you'll see in a few weeks more complete. The latter is also true; it happened to me last week.

It's as if nothing had its own identity anymore. You don't need to know anything about fashion to be amazed by a Cristóbal Balenciaga dress from the 1950s, but it's impossible to justify a very expensive, hole-filled T-shirt printed with Isabelle Huppert's face without resorting to ethereal concepts and gibberish. Balenciaga didn't know what branding, trendy, and aspirational were. I also didn't know I needed a very expensive, hole-filled T-shirt printed with Isabelle Huppert's face. Shit: the trick works.