Fashion as a political, personal statement:
Vetements’ latest show by Demna Gvasalia

Inspired by the war-torn history of his early life, Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia included the history of Georgia in his latest Spring/Summer 2019 collection for Vetements, which was shown at Paris Couture Week on July 1.

Furthermore, the Swiss-based label has designed an app that will highlight the history of Georgia and, in particular, the genocide of the Georgian population of Abkhazia during the conflict in the region in 1992.

The app, when downloaded, will allow users to scan large QR codes that appear on pieces throughout the collection. This will then redirect users to a Wikipedia entry on the genocide. Gvasalia was 11 when war between Georgia and the semi-autonomous region of Abkhazia broke out in 1992.

Gvasalia drafted in 40 young Georgians from a raw casting in Tbilisi, for a show where Soviet emblems, funky clothes and a group of masked men marched in this Vetements collection.

While some models wore hoodies which literally said ‘Georgia’ in the country’s alphabet, a few others had outerwear which mirrored the flags of countries including Georgia but also Russia, America and Ukraine. There was also a strong military theme which manifested in white, black, and grey camouflage, balaclavas, and heavy lace-up boots.

Vetements Spring/Summer 2019 collection. Photo: Vogue.

They represent for me what I represented when I came to Europe years ago,” Gvasalia said of his line up, which he described as characters of a film he was directing.

A certain naivety, a voice they feel they don’t have in their own country. I use them as a voice for this youth who doesn’t have a voice and is repressed by a political regime but they can’t demonstrate or say what they think – there is no real freedom. I lived through that and I realised it was a very painful moment for me and I needed to put it out there,” he said.

Describing the show as something his ‘shrink might have gotten a lot out of’, he said the collection was about "family and war” – it felt like a way to help him process his trauma around growing up in war-torn Georgia, where his house was bombed, and his grandmother temporarily lost her memory from the stress of it all.

Vetements Spring/Summer 2019 collection. Photo: Vogue.

I went back to my past in Georgia to face my fears and painful moments that I never went back to, like post-war in the 90s,” he said. "And I really made the most personal fashion proposition out of that.”