Cookie banner

This site uses cookies. Select "Block all non-essential cookies" to only allow cookies necessary to display content and enable core site features. Select "Accept all cookies" to also personalize your experience on the site with ads and partner content tailored to your interests, and to allow us to measure the effectiveness of our service.

To learn more, review our Cookie Policy, Privacy Notice and Terms of Use.

or
clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Vetements Designer Would Not Spend $1,300 On His Own Jeans

New, 1 comment
Getty Images: Edward Berthelot

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

If you find Vetements and Demna Gvasalia's recent stronghold on the fashion world confusing, you're not alone.

In an interview with The Telegraph this morning, the designer (and new Balenciaga creative director) talked candidly about his label's success, and it turns out he is just as confused as the rest of us.

Gvasalia's enjoyed a consistent string of controversy in the past year, thanks to continuously booking all-white casts of models for his runways, making $330 DHL T-shirts, selling $1,300 reconstructed vintage Levi's, and the fact that a lot of his "streetwear" inspired pieces are literal rip-offs. He is, however, totally oblivious to all of the above.

See below for Gvasalia's answers to some of your most burning questions, and then read the full Telegraph article, here:


On why people pay for his $330 DHL T-Shirt:

"Well, he likes it," he says archly, pointing to a man who is walking past at that exact moment in that exact t-shirt. "Let's ask him. [We don't.] For me, it was such a recurring topic in my life. Every day someone was saying, 'The package didn't arrive, we have to stop working with DHL, we will be bankrupt by DHL.' DHL seemed to be more a part of my life than anything else so I thought, why isn't it in the show?"

On why he would never pay for his own designs:

"...My ultimate goal is to be able to offer different things so the people who can't afford to buy a leather jacket can buy a trench. We have this one raincoat [black with Vetements printed in white on the back] which I see everybody wear because it's £150. My friends very often can't afford the clothes. Like myself, I wear prototypes but I don't think I'm crazy fashion enough to go and buy those things. I'd rather go on holiday. I feel like it brings more use. Holidays are important. Holidays and quality time on your sofa."

On exclusively using casts of all-white models:

"Our criteria for choosing models was purely based on the idea of diversity of character. We had very different types of girls but Lotta [Volkova, stylist and model] who works with me, we come from this cultural background where [race] is not even an issue. We don't even have that thing to think we have to be politically correct. I guess the criticism is justified but from my point of view it was the attitude of those girls that was important for me not the shade of their skin or their origin."

On the copies he's "designed":

"This bag," the designer asks the reporter at the beginning of the article, gesturing to the oversized, striped purse he's carrying from his fall 2016 collection for Balenciaga. "This is just a prototype but the number of people who have stopped me in the street to ask where it's from. Even an old lady came up to tell me this morning that she had the same one at home. I thought, 'I don't think it is ...'"