Balenciaga Couture Is The Death Knell Of Influencer Culture

Is it too crazy to think that Balenciaga’s couture show, presented Wednesday in Paris, might change the world? Stick with me for a moment. Back when we still had flip phones, an aesthetically pleasing life—or at least the image of one, presented to your peers—was for the very few. One of the many ideas that appeared in the wake of the iPhone’s launch in 2007 was that aesthetically pleasing, photo-worthy product was practically a democratic right—and so we got disruptive bed linens, cheery-colored Dutch ovens, and suitcases (that looked like big iPhones!) peddled with Susan Sontag quotes. Life might be difficult or chaotic or traumatic, but these easy-to-buy products, beckoning to us between photos of our friends’ vacations with their rounded edges and flat surfaces, smoothed everything over. As a result, the past two decades have been some of the most visually rich (but profoundly numbing) in history. It’s been a golden age for looks-first, and in some cases looks-only, life. Read more at GQ.