BALENCIAGA

· Brand History ·

Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972) was born in Getaria, Basque Country, Spain . His father died early and his mother made a living as a tailor. He often stayed with his mother since he was a child, so he became interested in sewing clothes and even worked with the tailors of local nobles.

At the age of 12, Balenciaga made a dress for Baroness María Micaela de Elío y Magallón of Casa Torres

, and received funding from her to go to Madrid for formal training. It was not until 1917 that he opened his first store in San Sebastian , marking the official establishment of the Balenciaga brand . San Sebastian is a summer resort for Spanish aristocrats and European upper-class people, so Balenciaga's customers include Queen María Cristina , Princess Isabel Alfonsa and other members of the Spanish royal family.

In the 1930s, Balenciaga opened "Eisa" branches in Madrid and Barcelona , and the store name was taken from the abbreviation of her mother's maiden name "Eisaguirre". In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out, and Balenciaga closed all stores one after another. The following year, Balenciaga entered Paris, France , opened a studio on Avenue George V and held its first fashion show. As his fame grew, he became a designer on par with Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli.

In the 1950s, Balenciaga became one of the major brands leading the post-war fashion trend, and set off a revolution in women's fashion with designs such as high-waisted baby doll dresses, cocoon coats , and balloon skirts . During this period, Balenciaga cooperated with the French fashion brand Givenchy to launch the sack dress , which had an important impact on the silhouette of women's fashion at the time. After entering the 1960s, Balenciaga was committed to fabric innovation and cooperated with Swiss fabric merchant Abraham to invent Silk Gazar . Balenciaga gradually became the favorite of many people in the fashion industry, such as the Duchess of Windsor, fashion designer Pauline de Rothschild, socialite Gloria Guinness, etc. The wedding dress of Queen Fabiola of Belgium was also designed by Balenciaga.

To date, many famous fashion designers have been influenced by Balenciaga, including Oscar de la Renta , André Courrèges , Emanuel Ungaro , Mila Schön and Hubert de Givenchy .

Balenciaga was a mentor and friend of Hubert de Givenchy, the founder of the Givenchy brand . In order to prevent their designs from being copied, the two refused to allow media personnel to enter the fashion show and did not reveal the fashion designs until the day before the release date. This practice was collectively opposed by the media industry, forcing Balenciaga and Givenchy to restore the practice in 1967.

Cristóbal Balenciaga, 73 years old at the time, closed all his stores in 1968 ; he died in Javia, Spain on March 24, 1972. The Balenciaga brand ceased operations until it was acquired by the Jacques Bogart SA Group in 1986 and re-launched the De Lix ready -to-wear product line.

French fashion designer Michel Goma , Dutch fashion designer Josephus Thimister and French fashion designer Nicolas Ghesquière successively served as creative directors of Balenciaga , bringing the brand back to the forefront of the fashion industry.

Nicolas Ghesquière joined Balenciaga in 1995 and was promoted to creative director two years later . The first handbag he designed for Balenciaga was born in 2000. Because it did not conform to the trend of the time, his handbags were not initially taken seriously by the company, but they attracted the attention of fashion show models, especially British model Kate Moss , and have now become Balenciaga's most classic handbag work, the "Motorcycle Bag" .

The earliest style in the "Motorcycle Bag" series is called First . The other well-known styles include City, Velo, Town, Twiggy , etc., all of which are made of flexible and thin leather. The common features include the zipper pocket in the center of the exterior, adjustable shoulder straps and double handles, leather ropes and metal rivet decorations. At the same time, each handbag has a unique crease texture , which is one of the reasons why motorcycle bags quickly became popular around the world.

In 2001, Balenciaga was acquired by Gucci Group , now Kering Group . Balenciaga entered the US market and opened stores in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Dallas, etc. In 2011, the Balenciaga Museum

was opened in Getaria, Spain to commemorate Cristóbal Balenciaga . The museum houses about 1,200 of his fashion designs, documents, personal belongings and other historical materials. Some of the collections were donated by Hubert de Givenchy, Grace Kelly's family and others.

Chinese-American fashion designer Alexander Wang became the creative director of Balenciaga in 2012 , until Georgian fashion designer Demna Gvasalia took over in 2015. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Balenciaga brand, the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK held the "Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion" exhibition in 2017 , exhibiting more than 100 clothing designs by Balenciaga.

·Chronology of major events·