7 On July 7, Balenciaga released the brand 2021 autumn and winter haute couture series in Paris. This is more than half a century when Balenciaga launches its high-end customization business again. The brand defined the show as the “Season 50th Haute Couture Launch Salon”, emphasizing the continuation of the brand’s haute couture history.
But as the current artistic director Demna Gvasalia said, many people may not know that Balenciaga is a high-end brand with more than a century of history, "they think it's a brand that started with Triple S sneakers." It may not be so exaggerated, but many people do not have a particularly clear understanding of Balenciaga's status in the high-end field. Taking this opportunity, it seems necessary to revisit Cristóbal Balenciaga’s story.
Dior: "He is a master of all of us."
1895 Cristóbal Balenciaga was born in a small fishing village in northern Spain, and his mother was a tailor. Balenciaga showed outstanding talent in her youth and was appreciated by the Marquis of Casar Torres, the most famous woman in the area. In 1917, he opened his first fashion house under the abbreviation of his mother's maiden name, Eisa.
Balenciaga It has been very successful in its early development in Spain. It has opened boutique stores in Madrid , Barcelona and resort San Sebastian , and many other celebrities among its customers. And in 1936, a civil war broke out in Spain, and with this external force, Balenciaga moved to Paris, the center of the fashion world. In 1937, Balenciaga opened its first fashion house in Paris. In August of the same year, he became famous in Paris with the first fashion show.
Cristóbal Balenciaga, Photography: Henri Cartier-Bresson
Balenciaga's design has a distinct Spanish ancestry , and the 2019 exhibition "Balenciaga and Spanish Painting" was held by the Tyson Bonemisa National Museum, showing the influence of Spanish paintings (and the Spanish history and culture they record) on Balenciaga's design. Exoticism combined with Balenciaga’s personal talent, the Paris fashion world at that time regarded him as a new trend of reform.
"Balenciaga and Spanish Painting" exhibition
Balenciaga's works - especially those after World War II - challenged the stereotyped fashion image at that time. The sculptural outline of has a bright and fresh feeling, and the streamlined and uncomplexing design has a pioneering minimalist temperament. These characteristics belong to the visual level, and perhaps more importantly, the design of Balenciaga proposes a new possibility for the relationship between the body and clothing .
It is not difficult to find from works such as "envelope skirt", "cocoon coat", and "balloon skirt" that the silhouette of Balenciaga is no longer restricted by the existing body contour, which allows the body or the wearer to obtain greater freedom in these contours. As a long-term client said: "Women don't need to be perfect in their clothes, and they don't even have to be beautiful. His clothes make women beautiful."
In the September issue of "VOGUE" in 1950, a set of classic blockbusters by Balenciaga in the US edition of VOGUE, Irving Penn,
The picture comes from Balenciaga Achive. The form of putting the number plate on the ground to take photos was also used by Demna Gvasalia in this season's lookbook. These clothes are not purely conceptual and innovative, and under the eye-catching outline, they are rigorous clothing making attitude. Balenciaga may be one of the few designers of that generation (and later) who can completely control the entire process of clothing production. In other words, even without a team, he can independently complete the design and production of these complex craftsmanship.
So there is Coco Chanel that evaluates Balenciaga's famous saying: "Balenciaga is a real fashion tailor (couturier). Only he has the skills of tailoring, assembly, and hand sewing, the rest of us can only be regarded as fashion designers.”Christian Dior calls him “the master of all of us” , and he also makes a vivid metaphor: “High-quality customization is like an orchestra, Balenciaga is its conductor, and the rest of us are musicians, following his instructions. ”
A few years ago, the Victoria and Albert Museum (VA) had X-rayed several Balenciaga masterpieces, showing the body-fitting cut hidden under the streamlined outline of the clothing. X-ray photography: Nick Veasey
In 1968, Balenciaga closed the fashion house and entered a dormant period. Four years later, Cristóbal Balenciaga passed away. The Balenciaga brand was not restarted until 1986. In 1997, the young Nicolas Ghesquière became the brand’s creative director, and in 2001, the current Kering Group (the then GUCCI Group) acquired it. Balenciaga, the story that follows is more familiar to everyone.
Balenciaga re-launched the high-end customization business after 53 years
At the beginning of last year, Balenciaga announced the restart of the high-end customization business, which is a new milestone in the brand's history. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the first high-end customization series led by Demna Gvasalia was delayed by one year before it was officially unveiled.
Before this series was officially released, Balenciaga, who is well versed in marketing, cleared all the content of the Instagram account, and reminded everyone in this way: the brand's haute couture series launched again after half a century is about to arrive after a year of delay. Stay tuned.
Half a century, it is long and long, and it is short and short. People's clothing concept lies in this 50 The year has undergone drastic changes, and Balenciaga, led by Demna Gvasalia, is one of the in-depth participants in the latest round of haute couture transformation. Even in the slowest changing field of haute couture, the seeds of reform have permanently changed the landscape of this utopian .
But in terms of the fundamental style and craftsmanship of clothing, there has been no revolutionary changes in this half century.
Balenciaga is one of the fashion houses with the richest haute couture heritage. In the context of today's era, how to restart the haute couture business, or how to achieve this balance between changing and unchanging, or to achieve the balance between innovative styles and inheriting the Cristóbal Balenciaga heritage, is placed in Demna Gvasalia The biggest challenge in front of us.
recreates the salon at 10 George V
1937, Cristóbal Balenciaga held its first fashion show at the salon at 10 George V st. This time, the haute couture business was restarted. Balenciaga greatly restored the layout of the brand salon more than 80 years ago on the original site: a space with white as the main tone, with only the door frame decorated with simple Art Nouveau style curves and white satin curtains, and paired with golden seats, the overall simple and elegant.
Balenciaga Images of the former haute couture salon (left), this time, it was carefully restored
In addition, there was no background music on the show, and there was no curtain call for the creative director after the show. All of this continued the tradition of the brand haute couture show that year - Cristóbal Balenciaga hopes that people's attention will be focused on clothing.
High-fixed exquisiteness is not missing
Demna Gvasalia has reshaped several sets of Balenciaga classic designs in the 2017 autumn and winter series to present a gift to the brand’s century-old birthday. After that, although Balenciaga's style of painting in people's impression is still street and rebellious, in fact, Gvasalia has launched more ritual dresses almost every season.
This time, the haute couture series Balenciaga displays a total of 63 sets of styles, including exquisite dresses that conform to people's impression of haute couture tradition. They have a perceived connection with Cristóbal Balenciaga's works. For example, the last minimalist style wedding dress is a direct tribute to the classic works of the founder of the brand.
or above 4 sets of embroidered dresses inspired by Cristóbal Balenciaga’s classic works. The embroidery parts are
special silhouette dresses and coats
on the left, which is actually wool sweater and wool trousers. Paired with dome hat , super long satin shawl and white knitted gloves designed by Philip Treacy, it feels like ritual at once. The rose shape of the era (left) is abstractly used on a black grosgrain long coat
1960s wedding dress (left). The wedding dress is made of silk wool, and the veil is a special knitted style. What can belong to the haute couture of this era look like?
doesn’t have to go back for too long. Almost 10 years ago, haute couture stood at the top of the fashion world with a more formal and ideal appearance. One feature is that the dresses created by heavy industry occupy a larger proportion and more important position, but all this is gradually changing, and more and more clothing suitable for daily wear on the haute couture show is beginning to appear.
Demna Gvasalia has pushed this trend to the extreme we can imagine at the moment. T-shirts, sweaters, striped shirts, sweaters, jeans, and bathrobes have all been included in the category of haute couture. Although he is not the first person to do this, it is probably the first time these daily items have appeared on the haute couture show in such a daily form. This phenomenon of
is actually logical because it is high-end customization. There are about a thousand high-end customers around the world, which is a game for a few people in itself. Some people are willing to spend a lot of money and time to customize a shirt or jeans that belong to them and are perfect. This is not outrageous.
When paying attention to high-end customization, what you cannot forget is that the greatest charm of high-end customization is not in the show, but in a series of experiences that follow. In fact, many customers nowadays don’t necessarily attend fashion shows, but make decisions through private previews (some even online previews). It is not incomprehensible to explore the ultimate way to make these everyday outfits.
Perhaps the most exciting part of this series is that Gvasalia combines his signature items in Balenciaga with the sculptural outline created by Cristóbal Balenciaga and the ritual feeling that Haute Couture loves. The sports jacket is given a volumetric outline. The Parker coat turns into a dress, and the backward collar is used from casual denim jackets to dresses. This dialogue interpretation brings a lot of freshness.
In addition, this haute couture press conference is like other brand shows, Balenciaga has given a very diverse model lineup. In addition to the high-quality natural threshold, other unnecessary restrictions have been broken here, such as gender, age, and appearance.
In fact, nearly half of the looks were performed by male models this time. Obviously, men's haute coin is a part that Balenciaga attaches great importance to.
The show started with a set of black formal looks, a lineup of female and male models blurred the boundaries of gender
Some highlights
Balenciaga This show had two guests watching the show. It was very eye-catching: Anna Wintour wore a co-branded long skirt between Balenciaga and GUCCI (if nothing unexpected was customized for her). The Kanye West opposite is a face mask, a black down jacket (it is estimated to be a cooperative model with GAP), a YEEZY Foam Runner and NIKE socks, which are all topics from head to toe.
Image from Dazed's Twitter
In addition, Balenciaga's live broadcast is also very interesting. Before and after the show starts, the camera is pointed at the guests watching the show for a long time, so you can see the scenes of Anna Wintour, Kanye West, Bella Hadid, James Harden and other groups of people after the show greetings. In the past, the camera will show a long-term view at this time, but this time it provides a special perspective for the audience who watch the show online, which can be regarded as creating an immersive experience.
Review of the complete show:
written at the end
Demna Gvasalia Describes haute couture as "the coolest thing that can be discussed in the fashion world today". He hopes to bring haute couture into the current context and present this purest form of fashion expression to the audience who belong to the present. So you can feel that his first haute couture series and ready-to-wear line have a high degree of unity in style. As a newcomer in the haute couture world, he chose to incorporate haute couture into his creative system without surrendering to the haute couture reputation, and he did not rely too much on the legacy left by the founder of the brand. This still requires courage and courage.
As for whether Demna Gvasalia and Balenciaga's attempts can resonate with consumers with high-quality purchasing power, it has to be left to the market for testing.
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