Balenciaga is trolling us once again with a $925 bath towel skirt
- Balenciaga released a new $925 terry cloth "towel skirt."
- The skirt, part of the brand's spring 2024 collection, is just a very expensive towel.
Balenciaga designer Demna Gvasalia loves trolling almost as much as (or maybe more than) he loves making luxury fashion.
You can see it in the $1,850 "destroyed" sneakers that look as if they've been marinating in sewer water and the $1,800 "trash pouch" handbag that looks like a Hefty. And now, Gvasalia's done it again with a newly-dropped $925 terry-cloth towel skirt, part of its spring 2024 collection.
Yes, it's just a cotton terry-cloth towel, though it does feature a "Balenciaga logo embroidered tone-on-tone at front," according to the brand's website. You can get a similar look with a $21.99 Amazon wrap towel, except the Amazon version has more utility, thanks to a front pocket.
Gvasalia seemingly can't help but make increasingly ridiculous, overpriced luxe items aimed at squeezing money out of the brand-obsessed, though after Balenciaga's 2022 holiday ad was accused of sexualizing children, the 42-year-old Georgian designer temporarily swore off the gimmicky stuff.
"I have decided to go back to my roots in fashion as well as to the roots of Balenciaga, which is making quality clothes—not making image or buzz," he told Vogue in February.
That same month, he unveiled his fall 2023 collection, a group of elegant garments with references to house founder Cristóbal Balenciaga's original strengths — body-morphing volume and impeccable detailing.
As guests wandered into the show, they found placards on the seats, which read: "Fashion has become a kind of entertainment, but often that part overshadows the essence of it, which lays in shapes and volumes, silhouettes."
But while many praised the show for its refined tailoring, New York Times critic Vanessa Friedman called the runway show a "march of the penitents" and said the clothes "were not particularly revolutionary."
After the show, Gvasalia doubled down, and said he'd continue to produce shows that highlighted the garments, casting himself as a "forever designer," and yet, here's a $925 bath towel.
But maybe this is all a part of his grand plan. "I don't like that luxury is always intended to communicate that you're rich," he told The New York Times in October 2022. "I'd rather wear a bag that doesn't make me look like the rare bourgeois bitch who can afford it."
Mission accomplished.