Cristóbal Balenciaga: the King of Fashion – Vintage-Retro

Cristobal Balenciaga was born in the year 1895, in a small village located in the Basque region of northern Spain named Getaria. A Spanish couturier who was well-known for his innovative ideas, supreme designs, and majestic craftsmanship, Balenciaga took his first steps towards the fashion industry with the help of his mother who was a tailoress.

He set up his first fashion house in the year 1917 in San Sebastian at the mere age of 22. He named this fashion house Eisa that was a short form of the maiden name of his mother, Martina Eizaguirre Embil. Later on, he established fashion houses in Madrid and Barcelona before he eventually moved to Paris. The fashion house he opened on the Avenue Georges V immediately turned into the most valuable and exclusive couturier. Balenciaga was well acquainted with the craft of fashion designing and excelled at each phase of crafting procedure of the dress, from the point of drafting a pattern to cutting, fabricating, and finalizing an outfit.

Balenciaga came to be called The Master of haute couture and has given shape to some of the finest fashion trends in the 1950s clothing style. He was seen as an inspiration for all those who wanted to master similar skills, and the works he produced still inspire many across the globe. A lot of his magnificent designs had an influence of his Spanish heritage. Black lace, matador outfits, and flamenco dresses were often seen in his works. The 50s clothing style that was introduced by Balenciaga gave rise to shapes that were entirely new and a fascinating invention in the world of 1950s women’s fashion. The early 1950s saw balloon hems and mid-1950s witnessed the arrival of semi-fit lines that had fitted fronts but lose backs. The late 1950s was a marvelous surprise for the fashion industry as this was the time during which Balenciaga introduced the famous sack dresses that incorporated no waist and though this radical design met extreme criticism, it eventually turned into a success that still has hearts of many.

The theme of body abstraction also came form Cristobal Balenciaga in the form of baby doll dresses that were a part of the late 50s fashion. Balenciaga was the face of revolution in the 50s clothing style and is respected and admired by many and that included his contemporaries as well. He used new fabrics all the time, his patterns came with innovative cuts, and the architectural shapes he crafted were bold and serve as an inspiration even to this day to all the fashion designers in the making. Let’s look through a list of fashion items that were finely crafted by the hands of Cristobal Balenciaga: the King of Fashion: