Who is Demna Gvasalia? The Fashion Designer.
Demna Gvasalia is a Georgian fashion designer, currently the creative director of Balenciaga ever since 2015 and the co-founder of Vetements, renowned for his innovative designs and influence on contemporary fashion. However he has moved on from Vetements to focus solely on Balenciaga in 2019. Understanding his background and experiences will help us to gain a keen insight to why he is one of the most talked about designers in the fashion industry today.
Demna was born in 1981 in Georgia, to a Orthodox Christian Family. Unfortunately, the Russo-Georgian war in Abkhazia in 1992 forced him to flee the country and live in Tbilisi. His family eventually settled in Dusseldorf in 2001. When it was safe to do so, he returned to Georgia and enrolled himself in university for economics.
Education: What did Demna study?
Demna studied international economics for four years at Tbilisi State University. However, he had no real interest in economics and deep down knew that he was more interested in fashion. But his parents convinced him that it was not a stable career path. He reluctantly agreed, and after four years of studying economics, he moved back to Germany in hopes of landing a job as a banker.
Upon arriving in Germany, he had a change of heart, he described being a banker as “the most unhappy person in the world”. In reality, he’d known all along that this was not what he truly wanted, and in a leap of faith he enrolled in the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts to study Fashion Design. He successfully graduated with a Master’s degree in Fashion Design in 2006.
The Timeline of Demna Gvasalia’s Career
Demna had a natural affinity for designing and by the time he graduated in 2006, he was working closely with Walter Van Beirendonck, famously a member of the Antwerp Six, and also the head of the Academies Fashion Department.
In 2006, Demna was collaborating with Walter Van Beirendonck on his men’s collections. By 2009, he developed enough of a reputation for himself that he was invited to design women’s wear collections at Maison Margiela. It was his first job after graduating from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts and perhaps the most influential on his perspective of fashion, one recruiter for the house even described Demna as Margiela’s “spiritual son”.
In an interview with i-D magazine, Demna describes that working there inspired him and he “discovered that beauty can be found in everything around us”, from “mundane objects” to “a completely new product”. His time at Margiela seems to have given him profound insight to what it means to be a designer, where “creativity needs to be limitless.” This was indeed where he learnt:
“to destroy in order to create.” – Demna
In 2013, Demna left Margiela for Louis Vuitton to be senior designer of their women’s ready-to-wear collections. This was where he worked alongside both Marc Jacobs and Nicola Ghesquiere. It was during this time that he began considering the possibility of launching his own label. He had always been inspired by streetwear and in Margiela and Louis Vuitton he would not have been able to express his streetwear creativity there.
Vetements, the Brain Child of Demna
Demna launched Vetements in 2014, with his brother Guram who handled the commercial side of the business and a few of his friends from the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts. They intended to create a high end interpretation of the street wear aesthetic creating a luxury streetwear brand. The brands offbeat look was combined by street cast models and unconventional runway locations such as underground sex clubs, and Chinese restaurants, invigorating the Paris fashion scene with new energy.
They began with going for oversized tops, tightly tailored pants and extended sleeves. Over the next few collections, Demna would get more experimental and it was not before long that the brand was drawing some eyes.
After only 2 seasons, Vetements was nominated for the LVMH prize in 2015. The brand made headlines with pieces such as DHL T-shirts and massive Titanic inspired hoodies. Vetements designs were polarizing and became a topic of conversation for fashion lovers, history insiders and they made their way into mainstream media.
Demna’s Impact On Balenciaga
In 2015, Balenciaga appointed Demna Gvasalia as their new creative director. He succeeded Alexander Wang and he was the perfect fit for Balenciaga as they were looking for a young ambitious designer that could come up with fresh ideas for their ready to wear line. Demna’s work in Vetements proved that he was exactly what they were looking for.
Although Demna had his reservations about balancing his personal label and Balenciaga he promised himself that he would treat the two brands as separate entities. After all, Balenciaga is a luxury brand whilst Vetements is a elevated streetwear brand. Demna was very successful in reigniting the love for Balenciaga’s ready-to-wear line amongst the public. Several of his most popular items include
In 2019, Demna announced he would be leaving his own brand Vetements. In foresight, we can see this was because Demna was embarking on a new journey, bringing couture back to Balenciaga. Despite Balenciaga’s beginnings as a couture house, they had not released a single couture collection since Cristobal Balenciaga’s retirement in 1968. Many of the silhouettes in the collection were updated versions of Cristobal’s iconic silhouettes.
Balenciaga’s first Haute Couture show since 1968 was met with a resounding applause, Cathy Horyn a fashion critic even said that Demna outdid himself. If we think about it, Demna has a similar youth experience, having to flee his home country due to civil war, both men having to grow up in a culture that did not accept their sexuality and
After a tumoltuous time of trying to find the right creative director for themselves, Balenciaga has been able to find Demna who in his own right has made his mark on Balenciaga.
The Internet Meme Culture Loves Demna
Demna’s fashion designs have often caused an explosion of memes to overtake the internet and it has given Balenciaga expansive social media coverage. Some of his bold designs include having reality television star Kim Kardashian in a head-to-toe body cinching dress that completely masked her face at the 2021 Met Gala.
Another would be his $2145 Arena Tote Bag for Balenciaga, which looks uncanny to Ikea’s $0.99 bag.
His collaboration with DHL to make t-shirts with a DHL logo a fashionable item.
His bold decisions have caused people to really speculate and dig deeper to decide what fashion is to them. Can anything become fashion or is Demna stretching the idea of fashion? And yet making fashion a conversational topic has put both brands Balenciaga and Vetements on the map and has caught more eyes this way.
It’s safe to say that Demna is one of the most influential fashion designers of the 21st century. Has was even named on the list of top 100 most influential people of 2022.
