No woman can make herself chic if she is not chic herself.
-Cristóbal Balenciaga
Balenciaga is known for being one of the most important Haute Couture fashion designers. He was born on January 21, 1895 in the Basque Country and since he was a little boy, loved drawing the designs he saw while dreamed of becoming dressmaker, like his mother.
His career began thanks to the VII Marquesa de Casa Torres, who saw him so enthusiastically while preparing his creations that decided to give him a piece of cloth so that copied one of her stylish dresses. The result was so spectacular that became his maecenes.
Eisa was the name of his first store, in honor of his mother’s surname and expanded to Madrid and Barcelona, making the Spanish royal family and the aristocracy dressed their designs, as it had a mastery of sewing and handling exquisite cloths. So much that even the Coco Chanel said:
It is the only one of us who is a true “couturier”
-Coco Chanel
Weight cloths with hand embroidery, sequins, rhinestones, collarless coats square, the Japanese or the tunic dress are some of the clothes that define this Spanish designer.
Very quickly he made confidence with high society: Greta Garbo, Grace Kelly, Fabiola of Belgium, Mona Von Bismarck, Barbara Hutton, Gloria Guiness, Pauline de Rothschild, Marella Agnelli, Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman or the Duchess of Cadiz. All this thanks to its high standards and its method of exacting work.
We should also mention that he had an obsession to find the perfect sleeve. He was able to discard an entire garment for not having the perfect sleeves. For him, it should be a sleeve that will accommodate all movements without disfiguring the silhouette of customers. Otherwise, the garment was invalid. Such was his obsession that even his guests returned home without shelter more than once because Balenciaga was left them at his workshop to make perfect sleeves. One of his victims went to the same Hubert de Givenchy.
After the massive influx of designers who made street fashion, Balenciaga finally closed the doors of his workshops in 1968. Another reason that led the designer close the stores were economic reasons and also by surprise, because none of its employees known about the closure.
After his retirement, he returned only to design the wedding dress of Carmen Martinez-Bordiu, becoming the latest creation of the designer. In it, he used twenty silver spools of thread, more than 10,000 pearls, 2,500 glossy small, 2,200 medium and 1,700 large, with pearl and crystal.
Unfortunately, Balenciaga died on March 24, 1972 of a heart attack. Later in his hometown, they make a museum in which we can find some of his designs.