The Fall of Balenciaga | Timeline

Before They Were Famous

Ever since Georgian fashion designer Demna became the artistic director of the European fashion-house Balenciaga in 2015, the once lauded brand has become far more infamous for its controversy than its clothing. But the surprising thing to discover is how often that’s been by design – like that time they remade IKEAS’s 99-cent shopping bag as a $2,000 luxury good. Hell, they even dressed one of the sexiest women in the world in a head-to-toe black body stocking and then sent her up a flight of stairs to the Met Gala. Poor Kim. But something tells me we probably really should have started paying closer attention when Balenciaga created a campaign that would see models walking up and down the runway while carrying garbage bags made out of expensive leather. In almost every one of these moments, Balenciaga was counting on outrage to fuel their brand, but now, they’ve finally gone too far after releasing two new campaigns that has taken public outcry to levels they never dreamed of reaching. It all started in the middle of November when Balenciaga published a campaign called, innocently enough, Balenciaga Gift Shop. But the name is where all forms of innocence came to a stop.