Cardi B is the new face of Balenciaga

Two years after she declared her love for those boots "that look like socks" in her smash hit I Like It, Cardi B has become the new testimonial of Balenciaga. The announcement came from the star's Instagram profile, who commented on the appearance of a campaign billboard in front of the Louvre in Paris with these words:

Ya lookin at the face of a @Balenciaga campaign! I remember how I felt seeing myself on a billboard in NYC Times Square but PARIS! Wish I was there to see it in person!

In the shot, taken by the same singer in Los Angeles during the lockdown, Cardi B, wearing a black catsuit-dress, is lying on a verdant lawn, among yellow toys (which could belong to her two-year-old daughter Kulture) and one of the new Neo Classic bags.

Although she is a regular guest on the front rows of fashion shows, this is Cardi B's first ever advertising campaign for a luxury fashion house, but it also marks a small revolution in the brand's style. Since Demna Gvasalia became creative director of the Maison, Balenciaga's advertising campaigns have explored cyber-glossy references to Georgian society, digital culture and the 1990s that are part of the designer's cultural background with a meme like alternative style. As the company itself admitted to WWD, the collaboration with the star of WAP is quite atypical:

By removing some steps in a typical campaign production, a contemporary way of creating fashion imagery is brought to life, bridging the gap between fantasy and experience," read a statement.

Is this the beginning of a new era for communication and aesthetics of Gvasalia at Balenciaga?