Luis De Javier’s faux fur coat has Decarnin-on-steroids shoulders and the imprimatur of a Paris Fashion Week debut at the Balenciaga show.
How Balenciaga’s Red Carpet Runway Accidentally Premiered Luis De Javier’s Latest Collection
As the dust settles following a mostly returned-to-reality spring 2022 season, memory and subjectivity self-edit an auto-playlist of standout moments, including... Marni! Loewe! Eating way too much cheese in Paris again! And indisputably, Balenciaga.
Demna Gvasalia’s Meta-Gala mashup turned our notions of the runway and the red-carpet inside out, then left us laughing via The Simpsons surprise. That night in Le Théâtre du Châtelet, only a few knew about Homer’s imminent elevation to the runway. Once the rest of us had got through the red carpet moment (or detoured around it) we took our seats inside and settled to watch both fellow guests and the models who had been cast to wear Gvasalia’s new collection follow us in. Naturally, we judged.
“But is it... a look?” was the question my fellow seat mates asked with more than a hint of irony. Once the guests started rolling up, the judgment became kinder: Telly Jally’s amazing camera-hogging won laughs, Lewis Hamilton, Isabelle Huppert, and Offset garnered respectful props. Oliwia Lis’s look was especially a look.
And then there was Betsy Johnson. The young English creative director, who is associated with the house and met Demna while working on Donda, was invited to the show and even furnished with a full Balenciaga ensemble to hit the red carpet in. She did wear it, but only underneath a faux fur coat with Decarnin-on-steroids shoulders designed by her bestie, the emerging designer Luis De Javier. As we watched her wear it from our spot in the gods we agreed: this too was very much a look.
Dust duly settled, we caught up with Grimsby-born Johnson and Barcelona-raised De Javier—who met in the toilet of a rave two years or so ago and now shape the presentation of his collections together—to discuss her cheeky guerrilla intervention as well the new collection of which that coat was a part.
Hi guys! First start by telling us, Betsy, how you ended up in Luis’s coat on the Balenciaga red carpet.
BJ: I went to the atelier and got a look, it was amazing, But when I got back I said to myself ‘they’re gonna kill me, but I have to wear that coat!’ I wanted to be a ridiculous caricature of myself. I was worried they were going to hate me for it, but they loved it, Demna loved it, thank god. We laughed as I poured my apologies for accidentally hijacking the show. It was funny, but also very much accidental PR!
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Luke Leitch
