The fashion house Balenciaga may be most famous these days for its hypebeast and streetwear vibe which screams rather than whispers luxury. The brand also commanded headlines in 2022 for a notoriously misguided ad campaign in which small children posed with a Balenciaga teddy bear bag wearing bondage gear. The controversy cast a long-standing fashion brand in an unflattering light. It also signaled a marked turn of this long-standing, illustrious brand from its origins.
One of the oldest fashion houses in the world, Balenciaga is today one cog in the French luxury multinational Kering, owner of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent among others.
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
But the fashion house was, ironically, founded by a famously discrete and private couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga who — almost unfathomable today — gave only one interview over the course of his 50-year career. Balenciaga’s life was defined by a nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic and detailed craftsmanship that have made him a fashion touchstone.
The new SCAD FASH exhibition “Cristóbal Balenciaga: Master of Tailoring” focuses on the designer’s exacting — and revealing — details illustrated in drawings and photographs of his designs in process. The exhibition is curated by a small army: Gaël Mamine, head of collections of Fondation Azzedine Alaïa, in collaboration with Gaspard de Massé, head of archives at Balenciaga, and Gonzalo Parodi, director of Parodi Costume Collection, and organized by Rafael Gomes, creative director of SCAD FASH museums.
Credit: (c) Boris Lipnitzki / Roger-Viol
Credit: (c) Boris Lipnitzki / Roger-Viol
Balenciaga grew up in a Basque fishing village, the son of a seamstress and a fisherman, who began his own training as a tailor at the age of 12 and founded his eponymous fashion house in San Sebastian, Spain, in 1919. He subsequently opened his couture house in Paris in 1937 and hit his stride after WWII in the designer’s golden age of the ‘50s and ‘60s. A peer to other influential designers of the 20th century like Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain and Coco Chanel, Balenciaga was unique even among those talents for designing, cutting and also sewing his own designs. The designer dressed actresses Dolores del Rio (shown in a flamenco-style evening gown), Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor who in 1964 wore a jacquard silk satin gown inspired by Balenciaga’s experimentation with the draped East Indian sari.
Clothes for “Cristóbal Balenciaga: Master of Tailoring” were sourced from the archive of late Tunisian fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa, a tiny 5′2″ man who dressed the towering supermodels Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz and Stephanie Seymour of the 1980s in his figure-hugging body-con dresses. Like Balenciaga, Alaïa was a kindred spirit with a reverence for tailoring and desire to keep a low profile.
The exhibition features a slim showing of over 30 garments (considering the 600 in the Alaïa collection) and focuses on fashion from the 1940s to the 1960s (Balenciaga retired in 1968 and died in 1972). Audiences may find themselves craving more — devoting the main gallery spaces to a larger representation of Balenciaga’s work in place of the pyrotechnic flash of “The Blonds” exhibition might have been preferable.
Some of the most enticing elements in the exhibition may be the practical, workman-like drawings and photographs of designs in process. Models in those black and white photographs are shown in both front and back views standing with their ankles demurely crossed and hands held away from their body like paper dolls. Violently plucked eyebrows and Ace bandage-colored pantyhose are their own style keyhole into the groomed and ladylike aesthetic of the age. Small swatches of material are affixed to the images, offering shocking bubblegum pink checks and Op Art polka dot premonitions of the garments to come.
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
The outfits on view show a remarkable range, from perfunctory crisp, buttoned-up female versions of the gray flannel suit to extreme, origami-evocative formalist confections like the voluminous sack, baby doll and balloon dress reminiscent of the avant garde cuts of Japanese designers like Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Yohji Yamamoto.
VISUAL ART REVIEW
“Cristóbal Balenciaga: Master of Tailoring”
Through June 2. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. $10; $8 seniors/military; $20 family of three or more; $5 college students with ID and alumni; free for under age 14, SCAD students, staff, faculty and members. SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film, 1600 Peachtree St. NW, Atlanta. 404-253-3132, scadfash.org
Bottom line: A slim showing of clothing created by master and formative Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga.
