If you've ever wondered what Walter White would look like strutting down a runway in avant-garde couture, AI creator demonflyingfox has your answer – and it's absolutely brilliant.
The YouTube creator, who previously went viral with "Harry Potter by Balenciaga," is back with "Breaking Bad by Balenciaga", an eight-minute AI-generated film that reimagines the entire universe of the AMC series as a Balenciaga fashion campaign. Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman, and the rest of the Albuquerque crew are rendered in the brand's signature dystopian-chic aesthetic – all severe silhouettes, washed-out palettes, and dead-eyed runway stares.
The creator has an eye for translating source material into the Balenciaga idiom – the fashion house's actual campaigns are already so cinematic and strange that the leap isn't as far as you'd think. This is the company that brought us the infamous "Bondage Bears" campaign, after all. So, meshing that aesthetic with the tension and bleakness of the original Breaking Bad just works...a little too well. The absurdity of the high-fashion industry may be a better platform to explore the corrosion of morality than the original show premise. I wouldn't be unhappy to see five seasons of this version released as a spin-off, à la "Better Call Saul".
Whether you're obsessed with Breaking Bad or just love extremely weird internet creativity, this video is worth your eight minutes.
[Image credit: Josh Kirschner/Techlicious via demonflyingfox/YouTube]
