Among the many A-list celebrities and models that filled Balenciaga’s Pre-Fall 2024 show in Los Angeles this weekend was a fresh face that, for some, may require an introduction. It belonged to SiiGii, a Spain-born, New York-based designer and sculptor whose work rides the razor-thin line between art and fashion.  

The genderqueer artist strode down the makeshift runway in a draping, “Bustier Knot Dress” and a pair of the fashion giant’s famed “Pantaleggings.” In their hand was a “9 AM Clutch”—that is, a branded bag styled like a coffee shop to-go cup. 

 

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The outfit’s black-on-white touches vaguely recalled what is perhaps SiiGii’s best-known work: a full-body suit that doubles as a reclining pool float. Released in 2020, the project was chalked up by some to the then-burgeoning trend of inflatable fashion, but for the artist, it was about more than just aesthetics.  

As a child, SiiGii developed an allergy to the sun, a diagnosis that made even the most quotidian outside errands fraught with risk. The suit, they explained in interviews at the time, was about granting sun-sensitive people a simple luxury that most of us take for granted.  

“Simply put, I could never lay on a pool float and relax in the sun. I had to become the float,” they wrote in a description for the artwork, which was tested in SiiGii’s hometown. “The power in becoming something new so that I could have the experience is the meaning. Adaptation sent me from feeling inferior to feeling extraordinary.” 

SiiGii’s more recent efforts have found them probing the boundaries of the body. One series features human forms stretched and twisted like Gumby dolls; another conjoins casts of the artist’s trunk and limbs with steel rods. An example from the latter group features a torso propped up on what looks like a mangled coat hanger, with a pair of lipstick-red trousers threaded through a cavity in its chest. The artwork’s title underscores the surreal humor of the piece, but also its latent sense of bodily anxiety: “I’M AWARE, I’M WEARING MYSELF.” 

The Pre-Fall 2024 show marked Balenciaga’s first such event in LA, a stark departure from the doomy, gothic settings of recent efforts. Gone were the artificial snowstorms and muddy runways; here, models walked a sunny strip in Hancock Park, the Hollywood sign framed perfectly by palm trees behind them.  

Fittingly, the front row was lined with stars: Tracee Ellis Ross, Kendall Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Nicole Kidman, Lil Wayne, Rachel Sennott, and Samara Weaving, to name a few. Meanwhile, other visual artists joining SiiGii on the runway included painter and sculptor Jane Moseley and Finnish filmmaker Jarno Parkkima. 

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