Paris Fashion Week 2022: How Balenciaga threw the spotlight on Ukraine, as creative director Demna Gvasalia relives the personal trauma of being a Georgian refugee

Mar 9 , 2022

A model presents a creation from Balenciaga’s autumn/winter 2022 ready-to-wear collections during Paris Fashion Week on March 6, 2022. Photo: Balenciaga

Guests arrived to Ukrainian flag T-shirts at the brand’s autumn/winter show, with a note from Gvasalia outlining his mission to use Balenciaga’s voice to highlight the crisis

‘We cannot use weapons and go fight but we can use our voices,’ he said, as models walked through the blistering runway scene

Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia threw the spotlight on the war in Ukraine, recalling his personal trauma as a refugee from Georgia at his winter show in Paris.

A model wears bold red at Balenciaga’s autumn/winter 2022 ready-to-wear collections during Paris Fashion Week on March 6. Photo: Xinhua

Guests were greeted with Ukrainian flag T-shirts and a note explaining that the war had triggered the pain of trauma the designer had carried since 1993, when “the same thing happened in my home country and I became a forever refugee”.

Models strut through a blustery, snow setting in Balenciaga’s autumn/winter 2022 show during Paris Fashion Week on March 6. Photo: Xinhua

“We, as a brand, have to do something … we cannot take weapons and go fight there, but we can use our voices,” Gvasalia told Reuters in an interview after the Paris Fashion Week presentation.

His show featured models marching through a blustery, glass-encased runway with swirling snow.

Creative director Gvasalia told Reuters that as a brand, Balenciaga can use its brand’s voice to speak out about Ukraine. Photo: Xinhua

It kicked off with a woman in a black cape-like dress, swinging a sac resembling a stuffed plastic garbage bag. Others followed, walking against the wind in wide-leg trousers, oversized hoodies and floral-printed outfits.

An influential designer, Gvasalia played a central role in the rise of streetwear styles and is known for powerful runway presentations.

The designer said he had spent two years in Ukraine after the war in Georgia, where he still has family, before settling in Germany. Georgia, a former republic in the Soviet Union, was plunged into civil war after the break up of the bloc in 1991.