Demna Gvasalia Explains Why Vetements Is Such a Hit

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Well, that's one way to sell thousand-dollar hoodies. Vetements (and Balenciaga) designer Demna Gvasalia just shared the secret for why the masses have fallen under the spell of his brand — and it's not pretty.

"At Vetements, it's always very much: ‘It's ugly, that's why we like it,'" he tells W.

But, in our opinion, maybe it's less about "ugly" by traditional standards and more about showing us things that aren't traditionally beautiful.

Last week, at Vetements' fall 2016 show, Gvasalia showed a droopy tomato red bomber lined with — to stick with the produce theme — a tangerine orange. Typically, pairing red and orange would be an affront to the eyes, "ugly," if you will. Here it was fresh, and exciting possibly just because others wouldn't dare to try it. It was a favorite look of many critics, including us.

And Gvasalia is happy the more you screw up his designs or even the name of his brand, which simply means clothes in French. "We're based in Paris, so we thought it sounded kind of fancy in French," Gvasalia tells W. "Some people can't even pronounce Vetements, which is even cooler."

Most importantly, though, Gvasalia says that the most crucial thing for fashion to supply nowadays is clothing you can actually wear. "Sometimes, I hear designers from older generations saying, ‘Oh, fashion needs to make women dream,'" he says. "I feel that this is really difficult today. I think it's dated. Fashion shouldn't make you dream in 2016. It should just be there, for us to wear."