Luxury down jackets and stilettos in rhinestones, dresses for royalty and pop stars, iconic models and silhouettes that were born several decades ago, but are still relevant among fashion connoisseurs – all this is Balenciaga.
The history of the Balenciaga fashion house goes back a long way. Cristobal Balenciaga was born into a poor Spanish family and very early began to help his mother in her work – she was a seamstress. At the age of 12, he became an apprentice tailor, and by the time Cristobal opened his first Parisian atelier, he already had almost 30 years of experience working with fabrics and patterns.
Cristobal Balenciaga opened his fashion house in Paris in August 1937, having been forced to leave his native Spain due to the civil war. Balenciaga quickly won an army of fans, from the aristocracy to Hollywood stars – all despite the fact that the favorite of the rich and famous had a lifelong aversion to publicity. Some even risked their safety to travel to Paris during World War II – all for the sake of the talented Spaniard’s luxurious evening dresses and suits.
After the war, Dior’s New Look flourished in the fashion world. Balenciaga offered his own alternative – the empire silhouette, which earned him recognition from Christian Dior himself, who called Cristobal master of us all (“teacher (master) for all of us”). And Balenciaga really shared his skills with his contemporaries; his students were Hubert Givenchy, Emmanuel Ungaro, Oscar de la Renta.
For Ingrid Bergman, who starred in the historical drama Anastasia, Balenciaga created the princess’s famous costume, which is still kept as a relic in the Balenciaga fashion house. Hollywood has always been his inspiration. Balenciaga’s fans included Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly and Jackie Kennedy, as well as members of the royal families – in 1960 he created a wedding dress for Fabiola de Mora Aragon, the future Queen of Belgium.
In 1968, Balenciaga suddenly closed his fashion house. This took his clients by surprise – for example, Mona von Bismarck, a fan of the couturier’s talent, did not leave her villa in Capri for three days as a sign of protest. But a few years later, in 1972, Balenciaga briefly returned to work, specifically to create a wedding dress for the aristocrat and socialite Maria del Carmen Martinez-Bordue. To decorate the dress, ten thousand pearls and twenty spools of silver thread were needed. This work became his last word. Two weeks after completing the dress, he died.
Only 14 years later, Jacques Bogart returned the fashion house to the arena, breathing new life into it. According to critics, the maximum creative flowering of the brand came in the 90s of the 20th century, during the time of the leadership of Balenciaga by Nicholas Ghesquière. It was he who invented the first iconic bucket bag, the Motorcycle Lariat, worn by everyone from Kate Moss to the Olsen sisters. Initially, the management of the fashion house did not like the idea of the bag, and then Ghesquière produced only 25 pieces, distributing them to familiar editors and models. The risk paid off; the Motorcycle Lariat has become an it-bag, vital for every fashionista. This bag is still on sale and has not lost its modernity.
In 2011, the brand released its famous boots, decorated with straps with massive buckles – in one form or another, they still appear on the catwalks from season to season.
A year later, Balenciaga presented a special Balenciaga Edition collection – 12 clothing models and 6 jewelry models, which were a reissue of the best models of Cristobal Balenciaga from 1945 to 1967. It’s amazing how relevant they turned out to be; voluminous details, bag dresses, cocoon coats look as if they had just been released for a new collection.
In the same year, Alexander Wang became the creative director of the brand. He actively drew inspiration from the archives of Cristobal Balenciaga, creating luxurious dresses for Hollywood stars. Three years later, he was replaced by a designer with Georgian roots, Demna Gvasalia.
Balenciaga is more relevant than ever. In the 2018/2019 collection, the brand made a reference to the UN World Food Program aimed at fighting hunger. Caps, windbreakers and sweatshirts with the program logo will participate in the charity program: 10% of the cost of each item sold will go to help those in need.
