Beyoncé’s Renaissance masterpiece was, in hindsight, an album all about clothes: a musical blackbook referencing just about every single luxury brand in existence. Indebted to ballroom culture and its tradition of reinvention – where ostracised people conjure the spirit of “Executive realness”, “Labels” and “Runway” when broader society refuses them those mantles – Beyoncé spends 16 tracks name-dropping high-fashion designers with all the braggadocio of an ascendant club kid.
At various points in the album, Beyoncé invokes “The House of Balmain”, “The House of Telfar”, “The House of Mugler”, and “The House of Balenciaga”—among others—in reference to the names that historic drag houses have given themselves in an attempt to access the kind of prestige usually ascribed to the bourgeoisie. But Beyoncé is a famous billionaire, and so her relationship with fashion is a little less subversive: she can wear whatever she likes.
It means she can get Donatella Versace to craft a metal-mesh gown for the Los Angeles premiere of Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé. And it means she can be the first person to wear Thom Browne couture for the movie’s London debut last night. Both of those looks have been beamed across social media, but there is another ensemble yet to make the rounds: an enormous, jewel-like dress taken from Balmain’s pre-fall 2023 collection that she wore to the London premiere’s after-party. Beyoncé would probably say that “it should cost a billion to look this good” – and, well, it does.
