EVENTS 8 -

EVENT EIGHT

BALENCIAGA SHOWS

2024 PRE-FALL COLLECTION / HANCOCK PARK / 2 DECEMBER 2023

MaxMara throws an annual L.A. shindig in honor of their “Face of the Future” Women in Film award recipient – they’ve been underwriting it since 2006. Past recipients have included Emily Blunt, Rose Byrne, Maria Bello – this year’s is Yara Shahidi, star of “Black-ish,” “Grown-ish,” etc., in the most adorable Max Mara short suit. Also on hand: Bella Heathcote, Dylan Mulvaney (also in MM shorts), Kate Hudson, Kate Beckinsale, Zooey Deutch, Zoe Lister Jones, most in varied Max Mara chic looks.

If Balenciaga – the French neo-goth-style brand reinvented by Vetements’ Georgian designer, enfant terrible newly-one-named Demna (former Gvasalia) – came to L.A. to send it up – why did they choose the most beatific tree-lined block in Hancock Park to show almost all-black bodycon or volumatic mens and womens’ brutalist style pre-fall clothes, shown on models gabbing on phones, gabbing a deux, hauling yoga mats and latte cups and thousand dollar Erewhon/Balenciaga bags? The soundtrack had male and female voices making fabulous fun of L.A. culture – the French version, I assume, of “lack thereof” – rapping about parking (lack thereof), prices, pretty people – while homegirls Kim K and Cardi B strutted down Windsor Court in 75 degrees with other punky models, in legging/boots (cool), mega capacious Balenciaga bags (very cool), and unwalkable boot shoes (cool looking, not walking – which the models seemed to think – or fall – was overrated. While celebs included Nicole Kidman, Salma Hayek, Tracee Ellis Ross, Zooey Deschenel and Balenciaga stalwart Kim K (paid, no doubt), the real showgirls were Gela Nash (co-designer of Juicy Couture whose pink tracksuits Demna fetishized) – with her Duran Duran star husband John Taylor – and now-platinum Lisa Rinna with her lip-happy daughters. John and Gela also hit the evening soiree at Sunset Tower – a much more appropriately nighttime urban vibe – watching Balen babies wearing pink tracksuits as in Juicy’s salad days.