Balenciaga’s Fall '21 Collection Video: A World That Could Be

The first scene in Balenciaga's Fall ’21 ad campaign took me straight back to the Orwellian vision of the Ministry of Love in 1984—a haunting virtual reality of a world that could be. 

Using motion capture to generate animated versions of real actors, the video follows a story of two divided lovers seeking one another out in a series of augmented scenarios. 

We enter the scene at a birds-eye view, zooming in on a virtual scene situated in a brutalist structure, which houses rows of what seem to be prisoners draped in dark Balenciaga veils. Everything is bleak; the only mode of freedom rests at the front of each beguiling row of humanoids, where each player gets a 3-minute block to enter their personal fantasy.

The setting is made up of intricate settings designed for Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow—a radical cloud-based video game that introduced the Fall ’21 Balenciaga collection. 

In the video, you’ll find all of your favourite looks from Balenciaga’s Fall ’21 campaign. 'Minibags' made of recycled sneakers, leathery tailored lab coats, NASA-inspired bulbous eyewear and starch white 'puffers' with the space corporations’ logo abreast. On top of this, we have a battle-ready medieval theme tying the collection together with chevalier shoes modelled off of a 400-year-old sample (according to SHOWstudio) as well as pieces from the PlayStation capsule collection. 

Take a look at the Balenciaga Fall '21 campaign above, and shop the entire collection in-store and online here.