Balenciaga

Founded by Spanish-born Cristóbal Balenciaga in 1917 and established in Paris in 1937, the original house of Balenciaga defined modern couture with its many innovations to form and technique. Since his appointment as artistic director in 2015, Demna continues to uphold the vision of Balenciaga through boundary pushing collections, which have expanded to include women’s and men’s ready-to wear, accessories, and objets d’art. The brand’s unprecedented interactions with the expanding digital realm, material developments, and today’s social responsibilities keep it at the forefront of modernity. In 2021, Demna designed Balenciaga’s 50th couture collection — the house’s first since its founder retired in 1968 — reintroducing a standard of cutting-edge elegance.