Balenciaga is returning to the runway on Sunday. The brand will showcase its fall/winter 2023/24 collection in the French capital city on March 5, as confirmed by the brand's team. This will be Balenciaga creative director Demna's first runway show since his hot streak came to a screeching halt late last year due to a few spectacularly ill-considered publicity campaigns.

Having fled war as a child, Georgian designer Demna made fashion a sort of battleground of provocative ideas at the helm of Balenciaga. It was tremendously successful — until it wasn't. The 41-year-old, who dropped his last name Gvasalia in 2021, came under fire for using BDSM-themed teddy bears in a campaign featuring children.&nbsp;

Critics panned the brand for placing toddlers next to leather-clad bears, condemning the brand for exploiting minors.

The campaign&nbsp;coincided with another ad campaign that included a strange background detail, a print-out of a US Supreme Court judgement about child abuse.

After the controversy caught global attention, Demna&nbsp;profusely apologised in an interview with Vogue and denied any intention to reference child abuse. However, the apology didn't do much for the brand since&nbsp;the damage had already been&nbsp;done.

"I have decided to go back to my roots in fashion as well as to the roots of Balenciaga, which is making quality clothes -- not making image or buzz," he told Vogue.

It is an unexpected moment of contrition for a designer who was named among the world's 100 most influential people by Time less than a year ago.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-louboutin-on-30-years-of-red-obsession-568438">Louboutin on 30 years of red obsession</a>

Demna is reportedly walking on thin ice.

"We are allowed to make a mistake in a group like Kering," said the boss of Balenciaga's parent company, Francois-Henri Pinault. "We don't have the right to make two."

He also barely escaped contagion from the controversies around his friend Kanye West, who opened Balenciaga's last show in Paris in September. The label cut ties with the rapper after his outbursts about Jews.

Before then, Demna's playful and inventive campaigns had made Balenciaga one of the hottest brands around.

A 2021 show saw guests arriving along a red carpet and then presented with a film of their entrance that revealed the models had been secretly mingling among them, wearing the new collection.

One campaign was done in the style of a dystopian newscast; another played with the tropes of reality TV. 
His daring designs included the head-to-toe black shrouds worn by Kardashian at the Met Gala in 2021.

"The unbridled creation has worked well but he will have to tame it down a little bit," said Arnaud Cadart, of fashion consultancy Flornoy Ferri.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-highlights-from-paris-fashion-week-2023-24-models-engulfed-in-flames-anrealages-colour-changing-outfits-568170">Highlights from Paris Fashion Week 2023-24: Models engulfed in flames, Anrealage's colour-changing outfits</a>

It will be a tough reinvention, not least since one of Demna's tricks has been to turn the ugly into luxury, from his pimped-out Crocs to his notorious $1,500 garbage bags.

"Demna uses his radical approach to overturn stereotypes of what is normal and what is a luxury," said Serge Carreira, a fashion expert at Sciences Po University in Paris.

It is an approach that worked, attracting all kinds of stars from cerebral French actor Isabelle Huppert to brash US rapper Cardi B. There was a fascinating backstory, too.

A year ago, Demna's Paris show fell just after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, recalling his traumatic departure from Georgia at the age of 12, forced to flee ethnic cleansing by pro-Russian separatists.

The show saw under-dressed models walking out in an artificial snowstorm, carrying those infamous trash bags. Some found it distasteful but it was deeply felt.

The invasion "triggered the pain of a past trauma I have carried in me since 1993 when the same thing happened in my country and I became a forever refugee", he said.

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Trained at the Beaux-Arts Royal Academy in Belgium, Demna worked for Maison Margiela and Louis Vuitton before creating his own label, Vetements, with his brother in 2014. He was named creative director at Balenciaga in 2015.

For many years, his trauma affected his work but he told Vanity Fair in 2021 that counselling, meditation and exercise had helped exorcise some demons. "Fashion used to feel like a battle for me. That is why there was a lot of aggression and darkness in what I did. Today I feel at peace with the system," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Balenciaga is returning to the runway on Sunday. The brand will showcase its fall/winter 2023/24 collection in the French capital city on March 5, as confirmed by the brand's team.

Balenciaga is returning to the runway on Sunday. The brand will showcase its fall/winter 2023/24 collection in the French capital city on March 5, as confirmed by the brand's team. This will be Balenciaga creative director Demna's first runway show since his hot streak came to a screeching halt late last year due to a few spectacularly ill-considered publicity campaigns. Having fled war as a child, Georgian designer Demna made fashion a sort of battleground of provocative ideas at the helm of Balenciaga. It was tremendously successful — until it wasn't. The 41-year-old, who dropped his last name Gvasalia in 2021, came under fire for using BDSM-themed teddy bears in a campaign featuring children. Critics panned the brand for placing toddlers next to leather-clad bears, condemning the brand for exploiting minors. The campaign coincided with another ad campaign that included a strange background detail, a print-out of a US Supreme Court judgement about child abuse. After the controversy caught global attention, Demna profusely apologised in an interview with Vogue and denied any intention to reference child abuse. However, the apology didn't do much for the brand since the damage had already been done. "I have decided to go back to my roots in fashion as well as to the roots of Balenciaga, which is making quality clothes -- not making image or buzz," he told Vogue. It is an unexpected moment of contrition for a designer who was named among the world's 100 most influential people by Time less than a year ago. Also read: Louboutin on 30 years of red obsession Demna is reportedly walking on thin ice. "We are allowed to make a mistake in a group like Kering," said the boss of Balenciaga's parent company, Francois-Henri Pinault. "We don't have the right to make two." He also barely escaped contagion from the controversies around his friend Kanye West, who opened Balenciaga's last show in Paris in September. The label cut ties with the rapper after his outbursts about Jews. Before then, Demna's playful and inventive campaigns had made Balenciaga one of the hottest brands around. A 2021 show saw guests arriving along a red carpet and then presented with a film of their entrance that revealed the models had been secretly mingling among them, wearing the new collection. One campaign was done in the style of a dystopian newscast; another played with the tropes of reality TV. His daring designs included the head-to-toe black shrouds worn by Kardashian at the Met Gala in 2021. "The unbridled creation has worked well but he will have to tame it down a little bit," said Arnaud Cadart, of fashion consultancy Flornoy Ferri. Also read: Highlights from Paris Fashion Week 2023-24: Models engulfed in flames, Anrealage's colour-changing outfits It will be a tough reinvention, not least since one of Demna's tricks has been to turn the ugly into luxury, from his pimped-out Crocs to his notorious $1,500 garbage bags. "Demna uses his radical approach to overturn stereotypes of what is normal and what is a luxury," said Serge Carreira, a fashion expert at Sciences Po University in Paris. It is an approach that worked, attracting all kinds of stars from cerebral French actor Isabelle Huppert to brash US rapper Cardi B. There was a fascinating backstory, too. A year ago, Demna's Paris show fell just after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, recalling his traumatic departure from Georgia at the age of 12, forced to flee ethnic cleansing by pro-Russian separatists. The show saw under-dressed models walking out in an artificial snowstorm, carrying those infamous trash bags. Some found it distasteful but it was deeply felt. The invasion "triggered the pain of a past trauma I have carried in me since 1993 when the same thing happened in my country and I became a forever refugee", he said. Also read: Highlights of Milan Fashion Week: 200,000 condoms as backdrop, Milano premiere & more Trained at the Beaux-Arts Royal Academy in Belgium, Demna worked for Maison Margiela and Louis Vuitton before creating his own label, Vetements, with his brother in 2014. He was named creative director at Balenciaga in 2015. For many years, his trauma affected his work but he told Vanity Fair in 2021 that counselling, meditation and exercise had helped exorcise some demons. "Fashion used to feel like a battle for me. That is why there was a lot of aggression and darkness in what I did. Today I feel at peace with the system," he said. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Balenciaga's creative director Demna embarks on redemption path post scandals

Balenciaga, which is considered one of the top luxury brands since decades, became controversy's favourite child after a series of its ad campaigns gained attention for all the wrong reasons. And, after staying silent for quite a while, its creative director Denma Gvasalia has decided to speak about the problematic ads that have resulted in a massive downfall of Balenciaga's image in the fashion world.

Speaking to Vogue, Demna said, "I realise that my work has been seen as provocative, but this specific situation would never be part of my, you know, provocative nature."

"This is where my error comes in. That was my big mistake. I didn't realise how inappropriate it would be to put these objects [in the image] and still have the kid in the middle. It unfortunately was the wrong idea and a bad decision from me. We should not have featured kids in images that included objects that were not related and inappropriate to them," Demna continued. "No one, myself included, raised a question of it being inappropriate. There were control processes in place, people involved—internal and external—but we just did not spot what was problematic. This was an error of judgment. I regret this a lot."

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/urvashi-rautela-to-star-in-much-anticipated-prequel-of-rishab-shetty-starrer-kantara-560936">Urvashi Rautela to star in much-anticipated prequel of Rishab Shetty-starrer 'Kantara'</a>

Talking about the reaction the ads received, Demna said, "It was a reaction I would never, ever want to cause. I mean, I’ve been called terrible things, which I’m not, and Balenciaga is not. That was difficult on top of the horror of being associated with that problem [of child abuse]. These are the mistakes we have made, and we have to be responsible for them. I would never want to mess around with a subject like that."

What was the controversy?

In November last year, Balenciaga released two advertising campaigns which stirred major controversy.&nbsp;One ad campaign was to promote its holiday offering called Gift Shop. The other campaign was for the brand's Spring 2023 collection.

Within days of the first campaign's publication, social media got flooded with angry reactions. Netizens&nbsp;condemned the house for showing children holding bags, which looked like&nbsp;teddy bears wearing harnesses. Some even slammed the band for picturing kids near an array of grown-up items, such as a Balenciaga-branded wine glass. Many felt the bags referenced BDSM, and that their presence on the shoot was an abhorrent sexualisation of children.

A week later, the Spring 2023 campaign got published online and it instantly went viral. Many spotted three disturbing props in the campaign that added to the furore. Netizens spotted&nbsp;a printout from the Supreme Court ruling in the case of United States v. Williams, which confirmed that First Amendment rights didn't include the promotion of child pornography. The copy of the judgement was&nbsp;half visible from beneath a Balenciaga handbag.

There was also a book by Belgian artist Michaël Borremans, whose controversial work&nbsp;around sinister-seeming images of toddlers playing in disturbing ways has often garnered negative attention. A fake framed college certificate was also seen hanging on the wall which bore&nbsp;a name that, when googled, brought up the identities of many real people, including that of a convicted child abuser.

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Balenciaga, which is considered one of the top luxury brands since decades, became controversy's favourite child after a series of its ad campaigns gained attention for all the wrong reasons.

Balenciaga, which is considered one of the top luxury brands since decades, became controversy's favourite child after a series of its ad campaigns gained attention for all the wrong reasons. And, after staying silent for quite a while, its creative director Denma Gvasalia has decided to speak about the problematic ads that have resulted in a massive downfall of Balenciaga's image in the fashion world. Speaking to Vogue, Demna said, "I realise that my work has been seen as provocative, but this specific situation would never be part of my, you know, provocative nature." "This is where my error comes in. That was my big mistake. I didn't realise how inappropriate it would be to put these objects [in the image] and still have the kid in the middle. It unfortunately was the wrong idea and a bad decision from me. We should not have featured kids in images that included objects that were not related and inappropriate to them," Demna continued. "No one, myself included, raised a question of it being inappropriate. There were control processes in place, people involved—internal and external—but we just did not spot what was problematic. This was an error of judgment. I regret this a lot." Also read: Urvashi Rautela to star in much-anticipated prequel of Rishab Shetty-starrer 'Kantara' Talking about the reaction the ads received, Demna said, "It was a reaction I would never, ever want to cause. I mean, I’ve been called terrible things, which I’m not, and Balenciaga is not. That was difficult on top of the horror of being associated with that problem [of child abuse]. These are the mistakes we have made, and we have to be responsible for them. I would never want to mess around with a subject like that." What was the controversy? In November last year, Balenciaga released two advertising campaigns which stirred major controversy. One ad campaign was to promote its holiday offering called Gift Shop. The other campaign was for the brand's Spring 2023 collection. Within days of the first campaign's publication, social media got flooded with angry reactions. Netizens condemned the house for showing children holding bags, which looked like teddy bears wearing harnesses. Some even slammed the band for picturing kids near an array of grown-up items, such as a Balenciaga-branded wine glass. Many felt the bags referenced BDSM, and that their presence on the shoot was an abhorrent sexualisation of children. A week later, the Spring 2023 campaign got published online and it instantly went viral. Many spotted three disturbing props in the campaign that added to the furore. Netizens spotted a printout from the Supreme Court ruling in the case of United States v. Williams, which confirmed that First Amendment rights didn't include the promotion of child pornography. The copy of the judgement was half visible from beneath a Balenciaga handbag. There was also a book by Belgian artist Michaël Borremans, whose controversial work around sinister-seeming images of toddlers playing in disturbing ways has often garnered negative attention. A fake framed college certificate was also seen hanging on the wall which bore a name that, when googled, brought up the identities of many real people, including that of a convicted child abuser. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Balenciaga's creative director Demna addresses controversial ads for the first time, apologises

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Balenciaga's creative director Demna embarks on redemption path post scandals

Balenciaga's creative director Demna addresses controversial ads for the first time, apologises