After a decade as Balenciaga's creative director, Demna had the opportunity to present his farewell collection at this Fall/Winter 2025 Haute Couture Week. With the uncertainty of knowing if this will be his last couture show for a long time—as Gucci has yet to reactivate this practice—the designer reminded us of haute couture's reason for being and how fashion always revolves around it.

The rule is simple: everything must be handmade and made-to-measure. This practice has kept fashion from becoming merely a clothing industry and creates thousands of jobs each year. For Demna, thanking the hands that helped him was the mission of his farewell, including his husband and the celebrities who were his muses, like Kim Kardashian and Naomi Campbell.

Despite references to Cristóbal Balenciaga, the designer's decade-long approach to the brand resonated throughout. The inclusion of bomber jackets and men's tailoring in Couture shows opened the space to portray diverse body types, which were later replicated in slimmer proportions, resulting in his iconic oversize silhouette.

Ultimately, the main intention behind Demna's Balenciaga approach has always been to portray reality and people. Perfumes, ready-to-wear collections, and everything that encompasses a brand ultimately benefits Haute Couture and leaves a physical legacy of techniques and materials. He bids farewell with sculptural and precise tailoring that doesn't rely on the flexibility of fabrics, almost like an exercise for his next step.

This collection begins and ends with heritage, but it feels like a social experiment, where different realities and statuses were portrayed. Some faces were older, yet they still retained the "Demna look." It was a celebration of what has been lived, a deflating of oversize silhouettes to achieve perfect fits, and in doing so, paving the way for the next level, always honoring those who lend their hands and skills to keep creating.