Who else but Balenciaga to conceive of $27,000 jeans? Sure, expensive pants are hardly the wildest thing that Balenciaga's dreamed up in the past year alone — $2k garbage bags, anyone? — but even for a brand that routinely charges over four figures for denim trousers, $27k jeans are pretty far-out.
The princely denim was revealed on June 5 as part of Balenciaga's 52nd couture show, held during the ongoing Paris Couture Week. The $27k jeans were actually in pretty good company, as they were joined by joined $4,000 turtlenecks, $43k coats, and $65k skirts.
But we have to contend with the fact that this denim isn't actually denim: Balenciaga's trompe l'oeil jeans are actually plain ol' cotton and linen pants delicately painted by hand to look like faded, worn-out jeans or leather pants. The time-consuming process necessitated over 100 hours of labor to achieve the desired effect on each pair.
On that note, perhaps the prices make more sense through an artistic lens: the new Balenciaga Couture collection also included $21k brass bracelets made of hollowed-out links individually 3D-printed, cast, shaped, polished, and galvanized.
Elsewhere, $4.3k leather heels are fitted with "internal prosthetics" and shaped by hand to achieve an impressively exaggerated and near-seamless shape.
Balenciaga also released $27k couture sunglasses that're basically just gold sunglasses with gold-plated lenses but, hey, you can get them personalized with a message of your choice (if it's under 20 characters).
If this all sounds hard to grasp, well, it is. But also consider this: couture is fashion's artistic, indulgent peak.
Couture shows are as close as fashion gets to art exhibits, patiently displaying one-off garments realized through countless hours of humbling atelier craft. Yes, the name on the tag adds a couple zeroes but the point isn't even necessarily the finished product, but the idea it represents.
To put it another way, fashion is to couture as a roadside toffee stand is to Willy Wonka's factory.
Couture is the sole realm where fashion designers and their teams may be unleashed to create whatever their hearts desire. There's a commercial aspect to be considered, as always — celebrities and ultra-wealthy VIPs comprise the couture clientele — but couture is artistic freedom in fashion, damn the consequences.
And, in this case, the consequence is Balenciaga's $27,000 jeans. Like a Picasso, pretty unattainable, but also pretty cool to behold.
Balenciaga's three couture collections have each been a pleasure to behold. They epitomize an exciting middle ground between haughty, classical couture and the freewheeling semi-streetwear synonymous with today's Balenciaga. The resulting clothes are impish hybrids of craft and convention, rendering familiar garments alien through proportion, production, and presentation for the sake of upending staid couture norms.
For Balenciaga's first couture show under the purview of creative director Demna, for instance, a reported three months were spent painstakingly perfecting a T-shirt made of padded satin.
Stupefying craft served with a sense of humor. That's Balenciaga Couture in a nutshell.
