Cristobal Balenciaga, the Spanish Couturier
Cristobal Balenciaga
Biography
Balenciaga was born on January 21st, 1895 in Getaria a small fishing village located in the Basque region of Spain. During his early years he spent most of his time being an apprentice of his own mother who was a seamstress. During his teens the noblest woman of the region, the Marquesa of Casa Torres became his patron and his first client. Balenciaga was send by the noble woman to Madrid to receive formal training in tailoring; she proudly wore and showed off the results.
This opportunity gave a young Balenciaga success in his native country and made him one of the few couturiers in History who was able to design, cut and sew his creations. As Balenciaga once noted “A couturier must be an architect for design, a sculptor for shape, a painter for colors, a musician for harmony and a philosopher for temperance.” Balenciaga open branches of his boutique Eisa in Madrid, Barcelona and the fashionable seaside resort of San Sebastian. His designs were favored by the aristocracy of Spain including the Spanish royal family. The eruption of the Spanish Civil War forced him to close down his boutiques and moved to Paris. Once in Paris he opened his couture house on 10 George Avenue V; where he immediately became an instant success among the elite and joined the ranks of Chanel and Schiaparelli.
By 1939 Balenciaga was becoming a revolutionizing force in fashion with customers fighting to gain access to his collections, even during World War II his clientele risked travel to Europe to obtain his designs. His designs were very popular because the clothes he created were different than the popular, curvy hourglass shape that Dior was promoting. Balenciaga liked working with fluid lines that allowed him to alter the way clothing related to a woman’s body. He became known for his exact standards and insistence on using absolute black for his designs; it wasn’t unusual for him to attend 100 fittings a day.
Balenciaga did not use a framework of
Biography
Balenciaga was born on January 21st, 1895 in Getaria a small fishing village located in the Basque region of Spain. During his early years he spent most of his time being an apprentice of his own mother who was a seamstress. During his teens the noblest woman of the region, the Marquesa of Casa Torres became his patron and his first client. Balenciaga was send by the noble woman to Madrid to receive formal training in tailoring; she proudly wore and showed off the results.
This opportunity gave a young Balenciaga success in his native country and made him one of the few couturiers in History who was able to design, cut and sew his creations. As Balenciaga once noted “A couturier must be an architect for design, a sculptor for shape, a painter for colors, a musician for harmony and a philosopher for temperance.” Balenciaga open branches of his boutique Eisa in Madrid, Barcelona and the fashionable seaside resort of San Sebastian. His designs were favored by the aristocracy of Spain including the Spanish royal family. The eruption of the Spanish Civil War forced him to close down his boutiques and moved to Paris. Once in Paris he opened his couture house on 10 George Avenue V; where he immediately became an instant success among the elite and joined the ranks of Chanel and Schiaparelli.
By 1939 Balenciaga was becoming a revolutionizing force in fashion with customers fighting to gain access to his collections, even during World War II his clientele risked travel to Europe to obtain his designs. His designs were very popular because the clothes he created were different than the popular, curvy hourglass shape that Dior was promoting. Balenciaga liked working with fluid lines that allowed him to alter the way clothing related to a woman’s body. He became known for his exact standards and insistence on using absolute black for his designs; it wasn’t unusual for him to attend 100 fittings a day.
Balenciaga did not use a framework of
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