This may be slightly repetitive as a post, as I’ve already written a scathing review on Balmain‘s SS11 catwalk show, but as I’ve recently heard some unofficial pricing on the collection, I felt I needed to recap on the state of this mess called a “fashion collection.” These days, Balmain is everything I hate about the fashion industry: repetitive collections (let’s face it, he’s only done a big shoulder and a pair of ripped jeans in the past 3 years, and re-used these ideas over and over again), over-priced clothing ($2,000 ripped jeans) and the destruction of old French fashion houses in favour of ridiculous trends (Balmain used to be a beautiful brand, and while I respect that a new designer needs to move a brand forward, what Guesquiere did for Balenciaga respected the fact that the house was fashion-forward and beautiful, whereas Decarnin has just wrecked the image of Balmain.)
In a day and age where times are “tough”, I feel that it is ridiculous to be selling ripped jeans for $2,000. But that’s not the only thing that Balmain is doing wrong. The last collection was an unimaginative, blatant rip off of the clothes that punks wear, without even a nod to high fashion. (If you are going to copy a subculture’s style, you need at AT LEAST nod in the direction of high fashion. Not just copy. Check out Balenciaga’s nod to the teds and punks.) Personally, if I were one of those punks hanging out on the bridge in on Chalk Farm Road in Camden Market (London) I’d be pretty annoyed that some silly little fashion designer stole my safety pin patterns and put them onto jackets priced well over $5,000. I heard the corset is over $10,000, and it looks like something a first year fashion student would make if they only had 20 minutes, 4 scraps of leather, a pair of blunt scissors, and a bunch of safety pins and they had to make an outfit. (Actually, scrap that, most of the first year fashion students I have taught are more talented than that.)
To end my rant (and you can read a similar rant about Balmain’s menswear by my guest writer Chris) I just want to say that Balmain make the fashion industry look like a joke. Yes, it is crazy to pay $400 for a scarf, or $20,000 for a diamond, but most luxury houses can justify the costs of those products. The process, materials, and skills involved in making many luxury products make them worth the price tag, even though many of us can’t afford them. But to pay $2,000 for a ripped t-shirt delicately held together by some “hand-pinned” safety pins, is a joke. At this stage I’d usually try and convince all my readers not to support this ridiculous brand, but I’ll save my breath. My readers are much smarter than that, anyway.
Here’s my full Balmain Spring Summer 2011 catwalk show review.
Images from Vogue.com.
