Vetements' oversized looks prove that memes are no longer enough

Founded from the outset on a fundamentally unruly and unconventional aesthetic, the Vetements fashion house was created by Demna Gvasalia and his brother Guram with the aim of challenging the industry by incorporating elements directly inspired by Soviet underground and street culture into refined tailoring collections. Now that the entire brand rests on Guram's back, however, it seems that the stylistic audacity of Vetements used has faded in favor of designs that have already been done before. Indeed, Vetements' new SS24 collection, designed by Guram Gvasalia in collaboration with his long-time friend, haute couture designer Elie Saab, seems more like a repetition of Demna's past shows for Balenciaga than a focused push towards sartorial innovation, although the basic idea of the lookbook is all in all original, and the provocative effect of the exaggeratedly oversized fit is nevertheless successful.

The collection 

Vetements' SS23 lookbook is inspired by the mannequin that Guram observed as a child while his grandmother worked on the sewing machine, an object that, at the time, allowed him to travel with his imagination. Finding a meeting point between the innate tradition of this mannequin, used for decades, if not centuries, by tailors and stylists, and new technologies, Guram's team used 3D scanners to transform real models into human-like mannequins. The clothes they wear are all voluminous, bordering on unwearable as they are oversized, yet they occupy the space and bodies of these 'living mannequins' in a harmonious way. The clothes are exaggeratedly voluminous, bordering on the unwearable, turning the collection into a parody of the oversize concept in which jeans seem to almost prevent all movement and jacket sleeves drag close to the ground. In Guram's intentions at the heart of the collection, whose press release was created using ChatGPT, however, there's a critique of Artificial Intelligence. As the designer himself explains, «Quality and craftsmanship can only be achieved by human hands and with a passion that no machine can have.» Defying the expectations the brand's fans might have had of this new collection, Guram Gvasalia decided to handcraft clothes that at first glance would appear to be created with AI, but in truth represent a celebration of human labor and craftsmanship in fashion.

The references 

Vetements' SS24 uniformly echoed the fashion house's style codes, except that every look seemed to have come straight out of a past Balenciaga collection. The dystopian look of the models was vague - but not too much - reminiscent of the aliens in the FW22 Haute Couture, in that case with their faces completely covered by a black reflective screen; the giant windbreakers, the down jacket, and the long-sleeved bomber jacket could be part of Balenciaga's old FW18 and SS20 shows, while Guram's bodysuits and smooth velvet dresses in neutral colors bring to mind the totally black ones from FW20. They may share genes, but the ateliers, until proven otherwise, should be too far apart. This is certainly not the first time that Vetements in the post-Demna era has been heavily inspired by the Georgian designer's work, in many cases copying parts of the collection more or less blatantly.