Demna Gvasalia's work is at times considered satirical, at times considered mimetic, but most importantly, in our eyes, it is sociological and tinged with contemporary realism. What is most compelling about Demna is the way he maps out the contemporary visual landscape--he documents everything from the everyday objects (reflector heel & lighter heel boots, car-mat skirts) to the archetypes of people (the 'uniform') to the actual lived behaviors of people. "At Balenciaga, wearing clothes inspires new clothes," he has said in a Vogue review and "I try to channel people" he has told How to Spend It. This explains the warped and distorted shapes: jackets curved and cut as though they were shrugged backwards...coats with dramatically raised shoulders like the wearer is tucking their chin down to protect against the cold...10 layer parkas that are borne of necessity and human ingenuity, the list goes on. Since the beginning, Demna's projects have been reminiscent of Hans Eijkelboom's "People of the Twenty-First Century," a stern, no bells and whistles snapshot of sociocultural patterns and visual mimesis. In Bourdieuian terms, Vetements and Balenciaga study visual manifestations of embodied cultural capital-- the statement "It's not what you wear it's how you wear it" but in fully constructed, finished garments with the attitude built in.
