FASHION
DAMIENCIAGA
Balenciaga hands its 25-year-old Le City to Damien Hirst — spots, butterflies, patches and a snow globe. Art, merch, or the chicest in-joke of the season?
COUTEUR EDITORIAL
Some bags are bought. Le City was adopted. When Nicolas Ghesquière sent it out in 2001, it asked one beautifully rude question: what if a motorcycle jacket became a handbag? Distressed lambskin, braided handles, too many zips, tassels whipping at the knee. No logo, no apology. Twenty-five years later Balenciaga is throwing it a birthday, and it has invited the one guest guaranteed to make the cake controversial. Meet DAMIENCIAGA.
The word is Damien Hirst’s own, written by hand and stamped across every piece of the limited-edition capsule like a signature on a canvas. It is a joke, obviously. It is also a manifesto. Hirst has spent his career asking whether a pharmacy cabinet, a spot grid or a butterfly could be art simply because he declared it so. Balenciaga has spent the last decade asking whether a bag, a sneaker or a hoodie could be a cultural object for the same reason. Put the two together and the answer stops being theoretical.
The headline pattern fuses Hirst’s two most recognisable signatures: his candy-coloured circular spots and a simplified butterfly silhouette, scattered across the Arena leather so they behave like stickers slapped onto a guitar case. On the black Le City Medium it reads as graffiti on a leather jacket; on the Love Red and Petal Pink Smalls it turns sweet, almost confectionery, until you notice the zips cutting straight through the motifs. That collision of art object and road-worn accessory is exactly the point.
Then come the patches. Hirst’s name and references to his famous works have been reinterpreted as embroidered emblems — a peace-sign hand, a heart, a pill, chunky lettering — the kind of souvenirs you collect on a tour bus and iron on at 3am. Across the Army Green Large and the Dark Burgundy Medium, they pile up with the confidence of a well-lived bag. Le City was always meant to look like it had a past. Now it comes with a backstage pass.
“Le City turned 25 and got its first tattoo sleeve.”
The patches travel beyond the bag. The Triple S.2 — the house’s maximalist dad sneaker — arrives in black and white, carrying the same embroidered icons, decorative zips and a worn-out finish, with DAMIENCIAGA printed on the upper. The Icons boxy denim jacket goes further, scattering patches front and back and printing the coined word across the shoulders. It is merch, technically. It is also the most expensive tour jacket you will ever see, and that tension is very Hirst.
The quietest piece is the most seductive. The Mandala scarf takes one of Hirst’s most hypnotic ideas — butterfly wings arranged into kaleidoscopic, cathedral-window symmetry — and lays it flat on silk. In orange, the wings radiate like a sunburst; up close, every segment is a wing, and the meditative effect is almost devotional. It is the capsule’s reminder that behind the provocation, Hirst has always been obsessed with beauty, fragility and how quickly both can disappear.
There is also spin painting, the Hirst technique of pouring paint onto a rotating surface and letting centrifugal force do the composing, here translated as movement wrapped around the entire form of the bag. And, for the collectors who want the joke on a shelf, a silver Balenciaga snow globe with a white dove suspended inside. Shake it and the art world’s favourite provocateur becomes a souvenir — which, given the whole idea, feels like the most honest object in the room.
The capsule runs across Le City in mini, small, medium and large, with a wallet, pouch, card holder and micro bag charm, each marked with that handwritten DAMIENCIAGA. Ready-to-wear and accessories include sneakers, hoodies, tees, caps and the denim jacket. To launch it, Balenciaga has opened Le City House at 10 Avenue George V in Paris — the historic address where Cristóbal Balenciaga established his atelier — for nine days, with New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul following through the end of the year. A campaign starring longtime Le City devotees, Nicole Richie among them, completes the anniversary.
Timing makes it more interesting. The collaboration lands in the middle of a creative changing of the guard at Balenciaga, and Le City is the one constant that has survived every era, from Ghesquière through Alexander Wang and Demna. Handing that icon to an artist rather than a designer is a statement about what the house thinks endures: not a silhouette, not a season, but attitude.
Is it art? Is it merch? Is it a very expensive in-joke between two masters of provocation? Yes. The COUTEUR verdict: the patched Le City is the piece, the Mandala scarf is the secret, and the snow globe is the conversation starter you will be explaining at dinner parties for years. Le City turned 25 and got its first tattoo sleeve. It suits her.
