What We Know About Balenciaga's Upcoming Fall 2022 Collection

Hot on the heels of the brand's S/S 22 collection, which went viral after screening a special episode of The Simpsons, with industry elite such as Anna Wintour made to walk the red carpet, Balenciaga have announced their next show. The Fall 2022 collection will be revealed off-schedule on 8 December with a video and lookbook titled The Lost Tape/The Show That Never Happened. The move is part of an industry-wide shift which is seeing brands move increasingly beyond the boundaries of the schedule and the traditional runway format, however going against the grain is nothing new for creative director Demna Gvasalia. Recently, he's 'hacked' Gucci, presented a collection in the form of a video game and created skins for the game Fortnite. Aside from a digital invitation featuring a CD marked in black pen with details of the show, Gvasalia is keeping his cards close to his chest; no doubt he'll surprise and delight the industry as usual.

The show, The Lost Tape, will play on the idea of a show in the archives that never really happened. It's as if Balenciaga existed as a fashion business in the 1990s, before being resurrected by Nicolas Ghesquière in S/S 98. If Gvasalia's five year tenure is anything to go by, the show will simultaneously play on the brand's past whilst also proposing something disruptive and modern for the future, the latter being a precedent set by Cristóbal Balenciaga himself.

In a series of camcorder clips teased on the brand's Instagram stories, revered fashion critic Cathy Horyn appears backstage post-show: 'He knows how to make it modern. Fashion is leadership.' Caught in her private car upon exiting the presentation, supermodel Naomi Campbell also comments: 'I thought the show was life-changing.'

Tune in tomorrow at 13:00 GMT on SHOWstudio.com to find out more.