Sanctity and Subversion

Housed within a deconsecrated church, the exhibition Balenciaga by Demna immediately immerses the visitor in an atmosphere thick with contradiction. The scent of lingering incense still hangs in the air—a sensory echo of the church’s former life—setting the tone for what is both a sacred and profane experience. As one enters, they are met not with pews or religious iconography, but with a monumental glass display case stretching down the centre of the nave. Once a place for kneeling and worship, it is now cleared of benches and filled with objects that function as both relics and provocations. Within the vitrine lie the various tokens that have punctuated the designer’s time at the house. These range from unconventional invitations to runway shows, including a ceramic bao referencing the most recent collection, a vintage hotel key fob with a room number embossed on aged leather, a theatre ticket stub or even a Balenciaga-branded energy bar. Together, these pieces form an index of Demna’s conceptual language: a world where the ugly becomes precious, and fashion objects gain the aura of personal mythology. This initial display serves as a direct map through the many “glitches” he introduced as creative director, elements once seen as disruptive that ultimately gave rise to a new stylistic canon now widely imitated by other brands.

Cross-Shaped Narratives

As the viewer moves beyond the nave, the architectural cross-plan of the church asserts itself and becomes a formal device within the exhibition’s layout. The transversal arm of the building houses the second act of the display—a ground platform, also in the shape of a cross, onto which mannequins and support structures have been arranged in a carefully choreographed grid. The narrative opens with an intimate and revealing object: the rejection letter Demna received in 2007 when he first applied to Balenciaga after graduating from fashion school in Antwerp. It is a symbolic and humanising gesture, a reminder that the path to creative leadership is rarely linear. Behind it stands a hyper-realistic mannequin of Eliza, dressed in a sharply tailored tweed suit that recalls the house’s historical codes but is filtered through Demna’s abrasive, almost confrontational reinterpretation of bourgeois elegance. This section continues with a taxonomy of footwear, including spiked heels, iterations of the house’s emblematic Triple S sneakers and platform boots that verge on sculpture. Among them, objects of absurdity and wit—like a handbag fashioned from a packet of crisps—reaffirm Demna’s instinct for irony and détournement. Here, high fashion is in constant dialogue with kitsch, trash, and the hyperreal, all anchored in a rigorous curatorial eye.