We watched the Gucci-movie, we binged through “Halston” – all lovers of TV shows and movies about the fashion industry can ease through the winter months watching a brand new drama series on Disney+: ”Cristóbal Balenciaga” – a mini-series dedicated to the life and work of the iconic, spanish couturier, known in the business as “the master”. The series follows his journey from his humble origins in Spain to a life as celebrated fashion icon in Paris.
Today, most people associate the name Balenciaga with colorful street wear. But, in fashion history, Cristóbal Balenciaga’s signature look is synonymous with the most classic fashion photographs and drawings from the fifties: slender models with protruding hips and sloping torsos, often facing away from the camera, wearing dresses and suits with violent shapes. A style that was epitomized by supermodels of the time such as Dorian Leigh and Suzy Parker.
Painfully shy Cristóbal Balenciaga literally grew up in his mother’s seamstress’ studio and became one of the world’s most famous designers. He opened his first store in San Sebastián, Spain, in 1918, and expanded with branches in Madrid and Barcelona. When the Spanish Civil War forced the stores to close, he moved to Paris. Here, success was immediate and customers traveled across Europe to see his designs, risking their own safety in wartime. However, it wasn’t until after the war that his ingenuity as a designer was fully realized.
The lines of his designs were sleek and linear, moving away from Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’, which during the forties had advocated the hourglass shape. The tunic, cocoon coat and high-waisted baby doll dress are just some of the designs Balenciaga created. His focus away from the female waist and the different looks he used to complement it – think the egg shaped coat and trapeze-dresses – attracted a lot of attention and is considered his most important contribution to the fashion world: a new silhouette for women.
The man himself was a mystery. Unlike most other designers, Balenciaga always tried to avoid publicity – he never came out to take a bow at the end of his shows, and the only major interview he ever gave was in 1971 to Prudence Glyn in The Times. After a highly successful career, Cristóbal Balenciaga closed his fashion house in 1968 and died in 1972. And the fashion house lay dormant until 1986.
The Balenciaga legacy has been carried on by many, most recently Alexander Wang and Nicolas Ghesquiere. But the one who has had the greatest success is Georgian Gvasalia Demna. His achievement for Balenciaga can only be compared to the vitamin pill that Tom Ford gave Gucci in the late nineties. By elevating the mundane into something admirable, Demna has provoked and challenged fashion’s ideas about everything from beauty, shame, celebrity, luxury, popular culture and virtual reality.
From opulent ball gowns to Crocs, the leap from Cristóbal Balenciaga’s original signature looks to today’s global street style may at first glance seem enormous. But there are also similarities: Antwerp-educated Gvasalia Demna has made anti-fashion and streetwear the new elitism, largely by elevating everyday objects in super-limited editions. Like his predecessor, he manages to surprise with new expressions and forms, albeit more conceptual than Cristóbal Balenciaga’s couture.
As GQ magazine writes: “He (Demna) has dragged streetwear and an ambivalent Eastern European menace into the luxury industry, first as de facto head of the Vetements collective, and since 2015 as artistic director of Balenciaga, codifying the way we dress into a global sense of style and transforming the everyday into something worth worshipping. In the process, he has positioned Balenciaga as the embodiment of a certain aversion to big business fashion, and as the coolest brand in the world.”
“Cristóbal Balenciaga” begins on Disney+ on January 19
All images: Disney+
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