Balenciaga

Right now, designer fashion houses are gearing up for New York Fashion Week in September. Balenciaga was reticent in talking about himself and his craft, so the nature of his business, the identity of his clients, and actual surviving garments and designs are necessary to supplement his occasional observations about his fashion philosophy.

His early working experience in San Sebastián alerted him to the dominance of Paris in international women’s fashion, as one of his responsibilities was to travel to the center of couture to the seasonal collections, to make drawings of models that might subsequently be translated into garments for Spanish clients.

His use of certain colors (black, shades of gray, earth colors, brilliant reds, fuchsia, and purple), certain forms of decoration (heavy embroidery and braid), and certain fabrics (lace used voluptuously in flounces and heavy woolens or new synthetics “sculpted” into extraordinary shapes) owed much to the aesthetic of Spanish regional dress and to the drapery and costume depicted in Spanish painting and sculpture from 1500 to 1900.

Major department stores bought Balenciaga models with particular customers in mind and then reproduced as closely as possible the couture experience in their salons, offering fashion shows, personal advice on customers’ social and practical needs, and high standards of fitting and making.

According to the designer’s website , the short evening dress, made from 100 per cent polyester, is draped” and envelops the body”. The fabric is joined at the centre front and centre back with no side seams – a signature of Balenciaga’s designs. Rather unusually for a high-level designer, replica shoes websites Balenciaga used his own hands to design, cut, and sew the model’s clothes throughout his career.