Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion

Fascinating exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at work and influence of the fashion designer Balenciaga.

The exhibition marked 100 years since Balenciaga set up is first dress making business in Spain aged 22. His mother was a seamstress and he did an apprenticeship in tailoring so be became skilled in all aspects of the business. I liked the first display which took you through all his Spanish influences.

One of his characteristics was to design clothes with no side seams and a lot of the clothes were quite sculptural. I loved the animations of how the material was cut and the shapes put together. There were also good displays on who bought the clothes including a lot donated by Ava Gardner, as she had lived around the corner from the Museum and was a frequent visitor.

The upstairs section looked at the influence of Balenciaga on other designers. It followed similar themes to the downstairs displays and it was interesting to see how the ideas were still around in contemporary fashion. I was fascinated to see that Paco Rabanne was the son of Balenciaga’s head seamstress in San Sebastian. Also that Balenciaga had been Givenchy’s mentor and referred many of his best customers to Givenchy when his salon closed in 1968.

Closes on 18 Feb 2018

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