Unless you possess superhuman powers of care and grip, you've probably experienced the heart-in-mouth horror of dropping your phone. A cracked screen is every iPhone user's worst nightmare, or at least so we thought until Balenciaga decided to make them cool.
The fashion brand ditched traditional paper invites for its Autumn/Winter 2022 show at Paris Fashion Week, opting instead for, er, cracked iPhones. Because of course it did. (If your own iPhone is cracked and you feel like upgrading, check out the best iPhone 13 deals).
The smashing invite (sorry) saw iPhone 6S models delivered to attendees, with event information engraved on the back of the device. Described as a "genuine artefact from the year 2022," the non-working phones come with a certificate declaring the damage "made from years of use and later, neglect".
The brand is known for its headline-grabbing marketing stunts, including launching its very own Simpsons episode last year. But this might just be its audacious yet, and social media users seem to be either loving or hating the smashed iPhones. Indeed, the tweets below just about sum it up.
Balenciaga sending personalized cracked iPhones with show information engraved on the back is very cool! pic.twitter.com/PQnFtEIE5EMarch 2, 2022
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Balenciaga using cracked iPhones for invites is just an example of how bourgeois culturalism is just a wing of capitalist-imperialism that has a parasocial relationship with anti-establishment counter-culture, and enslaved or colonized identities.March 4, 2022
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As for us, we're just wondering why Balenciaga opted for arguably the least luxurious iPhone ever, 2015's 6S. If nostalgia was the aim of the game, couldn't it have gone for the much more covetable iPhone 4 or 5? Even the iPhone 14 is said to be looking to 2010's iPhone 4 for design inspiration.
Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles.
