It was a fateful day for him in more ways than one. “That morning I met with Francois-Henri Pinault. I showed him my vision for Gucci, and he asked me, when can you start? There was this crazy overlap with going there to get this (medal) on my t-shirt, finally getting this, okay, I exist for you [meaning the French establishment] moment. It felt to me that something aligned. I mean, I believe in energy and the universe—God, I don’t know—but I felt like: the story is complete for me now. I came to Paris hoping I could get an internship that I didn’t get, and now I get this. So I can move on.”
The exhibition, he adds, represents “10 years of brain-function. There is a concept to every single thing. It’s almost like I was doing all of that to impress myself. Maybe it’s important, because I’m not going to be doing that now in my next chapter.” What! Is a whole different, non-conceptual Demna about to emerge at Gucci?
“I want to have a break from that. I look at all this, and I just want to have the greatest pair of pants. Maybe it’s about experience, or maturity in terms of how I see fashion. Now I feel like I just want to do this amazing fucking jacket. I want it to be light. I want it to be good to wear. I want to feel sexy in it. I want to have all those things that are not conceptual. Not boring clothes, either. Now,” he pauses, “what does that mean? It involves another kind of brain-work, to be honest. After 10 years of therapy, I learned how not to intellectualize everything. It’s much more about making great clothes that make you feel a certain way, without having to explain a book every time.”
That’s a big challenge, I say. “Yeah, and I love it. There are ways of being creative, still. I believe in that. I think we have to find new ways of expressing creativity—and maybe do good clothes. My next chapter as designer is all about that, and being curious.” And then, he says, he has to go. Off to see Billie Eilish in concert. A big black car is backed up to the garage, waiting for him outside. As we leave, I remember to ask what he’s planning for his final haute couture show, the final seal on his tenure at Balenciaga. “Oh,” he calls, as he waves me off, “it will be something very conceptual.”
If I’ve learned one thing from long experience of interviewing Demna: what he says is rarely what you get. I just cannot picture what he’s going to do, for the life of me. That’s a positive, I reckon. Fashion now is in dire need of the less predictable. As I drive away, some of Demna’s final words are ringing in my ears: “One of the most important driving forces in fashion is surprise,” he said. “I’m going to surprise everyone, but myself first.”