Why you should love Balenciaga's TikToks

It has become almost superficial to comment on the communicative avant-garde of Balenciaga, the brand that more than anyone else in recent years has made communication the work within the work, therefore able to go beyond the simple concept of campaign to range between the classic and the new. The ultimate proof of this are the TikToks created by the brand and that, for several days, have been the only content available on the Instagram account. As mentioned in the tenth Digital Cover of nss magazine, the relationship between the fashion world and TikTok has always been more complex than expected, with many brands struggling to find their own communicative register on a new and completely different platform than those seen in the past, from Facebook to Instagram.

So, among a series of more or less successful attempts, Demna's brand has opted for the simplest way: to be itself. It is not necessary to look for a meaning, in fact, in the dozens of TikTok uploaded by the brand on its channel in which, while not renouncing to some campaign video with Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber, Balenciaga stages its crazy and chaotic version of the social network, overturning the trends of the platform and making them its own, absorbing them in the language that has always distinguished the brand. To realize this, just take a look at the archive of @1800balenciaga, one of the many Instagram accounts devoted to the brand that collects some of the old posts made in the past on the brand's profile. Semi-shaved heads with the Balenciaga logo and "missing" signs with a pair of Speed 2.0 are just two of the many examples of "Instagram according to Demna", an upside-down communication in which ugly is beautiful and amateur is professional.

If the brand's collections have often flirted with the idea of meme and parody, in the same way Balenciaga's TikTok seem to want to paralyze the classic language of the platform. Nothing strange if we think of some of the most recent items churned out by the mind of Demna, who between a pair of Crocs Boots and one of Defender has always tried to create something capable of standing out from the crowd, whether it be fashion or social content. That's why the multitude of perplexed comments that populate every TikTok are proof of the success of a winning strategy, of the chaotic charm in which even a brand part of one of the already large groups in the world can paralyze a horror movie or upload a video shot in a horror house. Does it make sense? Maybe not, but that's precisely why it's okay.