Demna Gvasalia has never been known for conventionality, but his new Fall/Winter 2021 Haute Couture collection for Balenciaga reintroduces the fashion house to Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week while also reckoning with the brand's spotted history in the haute couture space.

Cristóbal Balenciaga has long been lauded as a master couturier, however, his propensity for the unconventional left him on the outskirts of the haute couture sphere. His refusal to conform to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture's rules meant that he was never allowed an official membership, thus depriving the House of a certified haute couture status despite the designer's legacy as a leader in the field.

As the current Creative Director of Balenciaga, Gvasalia continues the namesake designer's theme of innovative and atypical designs, but now within the bounds of the official haute couture label. For the brand's first haute couture collection in over 50 years, Gvasalia blended the fashion house's history of haute couture style with his own creative outlook on modernity. The series of 63 eccentric and exciting garments debuted in Cristóbal Balenciaga's own Parisian salon, fusing the past, present, and future into a single collection.