Demna Gvasalia: "Goodbye Underground, Hello Pragmatism"

Demna Gvasalia looks at the future and in a recent WWD interview says

“Eastern Europe is over for me”,

having enough of underground aesthetics, which along with unconventional choices and oversized garments has characterized aesthetics and made the fortune of the Georgian fashion designer. Just speaking of the loose forms of his clothes, the man behind Vetements and Balenciaga revealed that he had inspired his childhood in Georgia during the years of the Soviet regime.

“My whole wardrobe was like this. My jackets were always too big for me because they were supposed to last for two or three years. I think the reason why I like that kind of proportions and shapes is very linked to that”.

Gvasalia announces that wants to move away from that concept and use new tools in the creative approach. Its turning point will be towards a more linear, instrumental style,

“more analytical, which is more based on really observing the way we dress, what we wear, why we wear it”.

To focus on the new course, the designer moved to Zurich, where people do not consider the aesthetic side of their clothes, but more functionality and practicality.

Here, he has a creative lab, a library of ideas, concepts and observations that will enable Demna to develop an approach, "less subcultural, less underground nightclub scene…more into a smart kind of design”.

His last obsession? Working clothes for people working in the mountains like farmers, lumberjacks, “pieces of clothing that are made specifically for those kinds of jobs that consider the temperature, ease of movement, the softness or stiffness of the material, all those things that are very technical”.

Will this be the next Gvasalia’s chapter?