Balenciaga, Demna's masterful and necessary farewell. A new and compelling beginning for Maison Margiela.

Concluding is an art rarely practiced in fashion with the cards on the table. Many of the final collections of a creative direction are only concluded retrospectively, after the announcement of the separation, whether consensual and planned or sudden and belligerent.

That the collection presented by Demna on Wednesday morning in the Balenciaga couture salons on Avenue George V would be the last for the venerable house—which Demna himself led to stellar splendor and profits with a unique blend of talent and cynicism—had been known since last March, when he was appointed creative director of Gucci. This presented a completely different context and a completely different spirit: both lyrical and recapitulative, while also highlighting how necessary and timely the conclusion was.

Demna's journey through the harsh language and perfectionism of the inimitable Cristobal's form had come to an end a few seasons ago, hardening into a powerful, abrasive, brilliant formula, but like all formulas, destined to create habituation and, hence, boredom. Demna himself, emotionally, said it between the lines at the end of the show, somehow handing over the difficult legacy to Pierpaolo Piccioli, his successor: "One of my difficulties here was navigating a code that was too narrow for what the business has become: that's why I had to put so much of myself into it."

The Farewell is a Fashion essay—with a capital F, a rarity—that adds nothing to what has already been done but seals the file with sealing wax for the archives of history. All of Demna is there: the extreme constructions, the relentless taste for tailoring, the distortion of the everyday, the struggle between dress and body, trash and glamour. All his characters are there, too, now become mere mannerisms. Hungry again with insatiable bulimia, the system now awaits him at the next test in Italian garb. Change is not only necessary, it is inevitable.

At Viktor & Rolf , the darkness is pitch black, the conceptuality is at its peak. All of this, however, is tempered by a healthy dose of humor: cold, very cold, Nordic, but still Nordic. The idea is effective: the identical dresses come in pairs: one is incredibly puffed up with colorful feathers, while the other is limp, empty, and deflated. Interpretation is free: a reflection on the ubiquity of the down jacket? Or perhaps a reflection on the pre- and post-Ozempic body? On eating to protect oneself and starving to disappear? It's hard to decide—the duo calls it a tribute to feathers as a couture topoi, but the craftsmanship is appreciated, even if this is merely a stylistic exercise.