ART & ARCHITECTURE / CRISTÓBAL BALENCIAGA MUSEOA / GETARIA
”The master of us all,” was how Christian Dior described Cristóbal Balenciaga. Born the son of a seamstress in the small Basque town Getaria on the Spanish coast, he grew up watching his mother work, learning her son her trade and craft. This way of entering the industry is also what separated him from most other fashion designers – Balenciaga was first and foremost a craftsman and couturier, not someone fascinated by trends and commercialism.
¨The garments that Balenciaga produced were all made by hand, designed with the purpose of being worn by one particular person.¨
Throughout his career, Balenciaga was devoted to haute couture, the highest form of tailoring in womenswear. The garments that Balenciaga produced were all made by hand, designed with the purpose of being worn by one particular person. He designed the garments based on the knowledge of the wearer’s personality and lifestyle, translated through his high level of craftmanship and sense of style.
He begun working as a tailor’s apprentice already at the age of twelve, and opened his first boutique in San Sebastian in 1919, catering to the Spanish aristocracy and royal family. The civil war forced him to close his business and relocate to Paris, but throughout his career, he continued to reference his Spanish cultural legacy through colour and design. However, his work is mainly known for its sculptural qualities, blurring the lines between fashion and art. He made the garments appear very minimalistic, thus hiding the intricate construction – for example bodices, pads, weighs, hems and sets of buttons – inside the garment structure (which is why, when his work has been exhibited, garments have often been X-rayed, in order to show the visitor the complexities that are hidden inside).
He was so successful that he had ateliers not only in Paris but also in Madrid and Barcelona. After more than 30 years in Paris, he seemingly unexpectedly closed his business in 1968. The date carries significance in fashion history, as this was at the height of the prêt-à-porter-development, where other couture houses initiated their mass-production, putting the label that usually signified that the garment was handmade and one of a kind on a factory-made garment in order to capitalize on the symbolic value of the couture world. Balenciaga, known for his decades-long and close personal relationship with his clients – including Mona von Bismarck, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy – was not interested in participating in that kind of fashion system, and instead preferred to close down his business and move back to Spain, where he instead took up painting.
In 2011, the Balenciaga Museum was inaugurated in his birth-town. Its collection holds over 1,200 pieces designed by Balenciaga, many of them donated by his disciples, such as Hubert de Givenchy, or clients, such as Queen Fabiola of Belgium and the heirs of Grace Kelly.