Coperni, Balenciaga, and Gaming Fashion of Paris Fashion Week 2025
Paris Fashion Week 2025 took an unexpected turn into the world of gaming, where digital aesthetics collided with the anxieties of the real world. We could call it gaming fashion. Coperni’s show resembled a LAN party, with computers lined up like an international gaming tournament. Balenciaga turned the runway into a literal game of Snake, with models navigating a maze as if trapped in a digital loop.
2025 Gaming Fashion Collections
The collections were not just playful. They reflected how we engage with reality through simulation. If Off-White’s State of Resistance embodied a dystopian rebellion, Coperni and Balenciaga offered a more existential question: Are we playing, or are we being played?
Coperni Lan Party
The Coperni show was hosted in a neon lit, hyperdigital world. Rows of custom PCs lined the venue, together with artificial intelligence and real time digital renderings of the garments. The models walked through a space that felt like a tournament arena, evoking the electric intensity of an esports event. A few defining characteristics stood out:
- High tech textiles. Reflective surfaces and glitch prints imitated screen distortions, as if garments were buffering.
- Cyberpunk influences. Sleek bodysuits and modular outerwear suggested a world where identity could be uploaded and reconfigured like avatars.
- Tactical accessories. Harnesses and pouches were attached to seemingly regular day wear, similar to what we see on adventure characters.
Coperni’s vision suggests that fashion is no longer just physical. It is data driven, responsive, and interactive. The gaming aesthetic wasn’t just an aesthetic. It was a metaphor for how we process modern life in microseconds, adjusting to algorithms that dictate our choices.
Balenciaga Maze
I need to start by saying that I have a bias for Demna Gvasalia’s work. His activity at Vetements and Balenciaga is controversial but deeply rooted in his Georgian heritage mixed together with global consumerist ethos. I get it.
For PFW 2025, Demna’s Balenciaga presentation turned the very act of walking the runway into a game. The models navigated a massive maze designed like a Snake game, each movement triggering paths that adjusted in real time. The music was evocative of 8-bit sounds. The entire setting was a metaphor for modern existence: an endless loop of choices, surveillance, and predetermined outcomes. The collection itself was a surreal mix of 1980s office wear and futurism:
- Retro power suits. Sharply padded shoulders and oversized proportions channeled corporate dominance, reimagined for a digital age.
- Tactical workwear. Trench coats with multiple fastenings and convertible designs hinted at adaptability within rigid structures.
- Minimalist uniforms. The stark simplicity of monochrome ensembles nodded to a world where efficiency overrides expression.
This was Ender’s Game in reverse. In Orson Scott Card’s novel, children believed they were playing a game, only to realize they were engaged in real warfare. Balenciaga’s show flipped that concept: we know the world is serious, but we play games, both literal and psychological, to manage its anxieties. Gamification has become a survival mechanism and Balenciaga suggests that alienation is not just inevitable but, at times, necessary.
The Politics of Play
The gamification of these collections wasn’t just an aesthetic choice. It was a statement. In a world where reality feels increasingly unreal, fashion reflects our desire to compartmentalize, to simulate, to process. But unlike traditional escapism, these shows didn’t offer comfort. They exposed the framework behind the illusion.
As with Fashion at the Edge, which argues that fashion mirrors collective anxieties, these shows expressed a growing awareness that the systems in which we exist are not just observed but participated in.
What comes to mind is Pekka Himanen’s Hacker Ethic, and out of that, the belief that systems should be open, knowledge should be shared, and authority should be questioned. The Hacker Ethic also states that we should take jokes seriously and serious matters with a playful approach. Steven Levy states the principles of The Hacker Ethic:
- The Hands-On Imperative: Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total.
- All information should be free.
- Mistrust authority – promote decentralization.
- Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
- You can create art and beauty on a computer.
- Computers can change your life for the better.
Gamification can be productive, but only if we use it to challenge and reshape the systems in which we live, turning play into empowerment rather than passive participation.
Conclusion
Paris Fashion Week 2025 reminded us that the garments in which we cover ourselves is code, strategy, and movement through designed environments. And just like in any game, understanding the rules is the first step to breaking them.