Scanned, molded, augmented with prostheses or downright virtual… at Balenciaga, the models are never what they seem. Why be commonplace when you can be fashion tech ?

By Ludmilla Intravaia

One have had to look twice, before being sure that the young man dressed in Balenciaga, casually seated in the Paris store of the brand, was indeed an inanimate mannequin. The fiberglass and silicone creature could easily have been mistaken for a fashionista who, exhausted by a hectic shopping weekend, would have given himself a little rest, in the store of his favorite brand, before resuming his shopping on rue Saint- Honoré.

At the opening of the new Balenciaga flagship store in New York last September, the same kind of mannequins, replicas of “in real life” models scanned in 3D, also took up residence at 620 Madison Avenue. Those hyper realistic hosts were "manufactured by a special effects studio based in the UK, by making a life cast of real models’ bodies and faces", explained the brand to Le Boudoir Numérique. The effect was all the more striking as the mannequins were wearing silhouettes from the fall-winter 2019 collection, signed by Balenciaga's artistic director, Demna Gvasalia (see below).

These 3D mannequins, or at least their heads, are furiously reminiscent of the Fall-Winter 2018-2019 ready-to-wear collection of the Italian brand Gucci, whose models walked the Milanese catwalk in February 2018, equipped with a copy of their decapitated noggin, as an ultimate fashion accessory (see below).

American actor Jared Leto could not resist this fashion tech statement : On May 6, he had to wear a Gucci outfit, with a double of his head, for the 2019 Met Gala red carpet (see below).

As a matter of fact, Balenciaga’s models have a strong tendency to stand out from the crowd of expected appearances. For the spring-summer 2020 collection, presented on September 29, 2019, during Paris Fashion Week, the facial features of the models, especially the cheekbones, were enhanced with prostheses by make-up artist Alexis Kinebanyan, founder of the French special effects workshop, KFX studio, working in film and television industries. 

Author’s update : The models of this September 2019 fashion show also made a surprising appearance in Balenciaga’s SS20 fashion campaign, which was unveiled on the web on January 18, 2020 (see below). For more information, read this Boudoir Numérique Paper : "Models are making the (virtual) news", here.

3D models, creatures augmented with prostheses ... this tech influence is not new for Demna Gvasalia. Already, the Balenciaga spring 2019 campaign film, broadcast in November 2018 on Instagram and signed by digital artist Yilmaz Sen, featured digital models twisting in all directions, under the impulse of unbridled pixels (see the video below).

Continue reading on fashion tech at Balenciaga with these Boudoir Numérique following papers :

 * "Balenciaga under tech influences"

* "ParisFW SS20: Balenciaga sunglasses with led logo"