Balenciaga Haute Couture Fall 2025 Collection
In what was his most refined showing yet, Demna bid farewell to Balenciaga’s couture runway, handing over a clean, elegant slate to his successor, Pierpaolo Piccioli. “I felt a deep sense of joy closing this chapter after ten years,” said the Georgian designer following his final haute couture show for the house on Wednesday—this time breaking from tradition and taking a bow in his signature hoodie, blowing kisses to the crowd.
Set to the haunting ballad “No Ordinary Love” by Sade—“the soundtrack of my life since I was ten,” he confessed—the emotional undercurrent resonated with the story Demna crafted during his tenure at Cristóbal Balenciaga’s legacy house.
Since reintroducing Balenciaga’s couture line in 2020, fifty-two years after the founder closed the atelier, Demna redefined what couture could be: opening a dedicated boutique on Avenue George V, collaborating with tech brands for face shields and sound systems, and unapologetically putting tracksuits, T-shirts, jeans, and puffer jackets on the most prestigious stage in fashion.
This final collection showcased Demna’s purest, most distilled vision yet. Gothic tones and funereal flair hinted at an Addams Family undercurrent—models walked with ghostlike gazes, while front-row guest and performance artist Alexis Stone channeled Morticia Addams, complete with a disembodied “Thing” on her shoulder and a single thorny stem in hand.
Among the runway surprises were Kim Kardashian in a slinky negligee, her furry coat slipping from her shoulders; a convincing Dolly Parton lookalike; and what looked like a live-action Disney debutante.
Yet these antics never overshadowed the sharp tailoring and meticulous construction that defined the collection. The silhouettes began with shoulders curved slightly inward, evolving into sculptural corset-dresses that Demna likened to “shapewear on steroids.”
The accompanying lookbook, rather than taking place in ornate salons or gilded halls, was shot across everyday Parisian backdrops—under bridges, near metro entrances, and in front of shuttered convenience stores covered in graffiti. “I wanted couture to feel relevant, grounded—not in a palace, but in real life,” he said.
