Balenciaga has often taken the road less travelled with its fashion presentations. This year at Paris Fashion Week in March, the Kering owned luxury fashion house spurred the conversation around climate change with its Fall-Winter’20 show. In a rather dark, apocalyptic-themed setting, the models were seen sashaying down the water-flooded runway with super graphic LED projections of inferno skies.
For its new collection, the brand’s Creative Director Demna Gvasalia has yet again done things differently. To showcase its AW’21 edit, Balenciaga has launched a video game.
Titled Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, a video game set in the year 2031, was released yesterday. Gamers to non-gamers and fashion geeks to the lesser interested ones – everyone is in for an exciting gaming treat as they navigate through the mysterious and futuristic world of high fashion.
Balenciaga launches a video game, Afterworld
The player can choose from a selection of 50 avatars from the AW’21 lookbook. There are a total of five levels of the game. A player must walk through a grunge-styled store to a busy city street, then to a dark forest, and so on.
Throughout the game, other avatars are seen donning Balenciaga’s new collection that is signature to Gvasalia’s mood board of puffer jackets and trench coats with fresher designs of dramatically slashed jeans, layered over pants, sharp, metallic boots, fake fur jackets, reversible parka, fit turtlenecks and more. Big sunglasses, backpacks, handbags, and phones complete the look. NASA logos on outerwear suggests retro astronaut style, while gaming champion outfits feature logos of the recently launched PlayStation 5.
The basic idea is to promote ‘reuse, rewear and restyle’ quotient of this collection, and of the fashion industry as a whole in the near future.
Breaking away from the notion of perfection, Balenciaga has also introduced tailored suits made in T-shirt. On the list are pre crinkled suits that just don’t need ironing and super destroyed suits for a cool look. For hiking, cycling, and other outdoor activities, Balenciaga has used performance tailoring with mesh-lined stretch materials.
