Saturday, December 6, 2014

Balenciaga

1943

New images of mannequins wearing garments by Cristobal Balenciaga (1895-1972)  now generally acknowledged as the most original and influential of the numerous dead 20th century couturiers who founded eponymous houses.

I located these splendid dresses on a site called Europeana, which appears to have been conceived as a gathering place for holdings from the ever-increasing number of European institutions preserving fashion-as-history.

1953

1954


1956

1957

1960

1961

1961

1964

1965

 1970

In silhouette and fabrication the Balenciaga ethos found its most authroitative posthumous voice in Nicolas Ghesquière, who designed the two-piece costume below in 1998 and remained at the house leaping from strength to strength until 2012 and the inevitable rupture between modern free-lance Talent and the modern corporate Paymaster.

 1998