Balenciaga brings football to the catwalk

UPDATE 23/09/2020: After seeing them in March at the Fall/Winter 2020 show in Paris, Balenciaga has published a series of photos of its Soccer Sneakers on the occasion of the release. Made without the use of leather, the design reinterprets that of a pair of shoes for everyday life.

The Balenciaga Soccer Sneakers will be available from September 24th in three colors: white, black and red. The retail price is £495.

For the return on the catwalks of the Spanish brand after 52 years, the curiosity on how Demna Gsvalia, creative director of Balenciaga, would have exploited access to the couture archive was so great. But the Georgian designer literally surprised us, focusing everything on the company's obsession with team sport, mainly for football. "Footballers and priests were what I grew up with in Georgia. Sport, religion, obsession and seduction are stripped of their functions by only ascending the feeling that they are fashionable."

The general impression is that Gsvalia wanted to continue the football-oriented fashion wave launched by Gosha Rubchinskiy in the SS2018 collection and continued with the adidas collection dedicated to the 2018 World Cup; but it is not Balenciaga's first attempt to connect to the green rectangle, so much so that Zen, the new frontier of Balenciaga's ugly sneakers, a mix between a Bikkembergs Soccer 106 from the early 2000s and an adidas Prajna from late 90s.

As for the apparel, instead, four complete kits have been presented, each of which seems to have drawn inspiration from the uniforms that have appeared on the football fields in the last 20 years: the bright colors are reminiscent of the cheap universe of referees of the 2000s signed Diadora, the materials with acrylic semblances instead seem to come from the brands of great diffusion in the lower categories on the Legea, Marcon Givova and Zeus wave, the logos have explicit references to Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid, finally the design, especially of the version yellow and black, reminiscent of the Total90 used by Nike since 2002 (that of the commercial ''The Cage''), downgraded by an oversize fit that certainly does not do it justice.

The kits presented, including socks and boots, were produced in red, dark blue, black and fluorescent yellow and printed with various logos and representative signs of the Balenciaga Football Club, different from the traditional logo. Some models carried the new lunchbox (essential for mid-time snacks), while others kept their hands in their pockets.

The part of the collection dedicated to clothing for business meetings, on the other hand, may have provided some clues as to what will happen during the autumn / winter 2020 fashion shows in July, but, as always, Gsvalia leaves us only with food for thought.