To characterize Cristobal Balenciaga as merely a designer of clothing would miss the point of his work and the impact it left upon the fashion world. An anachronism in the truest sense of the word, Balenciaga was arguably the last true European courtier, the final heir to a tradition of painstaking manual labor that stretched back centuries. Set apart from the fashion world at large as much by his almost obsessive perfectionism as by his legendarily intense aversion to the spotlight, Balenciaga shared little of the brand-building and self-congratulatory tendencies rampant in many of his counterparts. As a result, Mary Blume's biography of Balenciaga, The Master of Us All, reads more like a book about what Balenciaga’s confidants and contemporaries
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The Master of Us All begins to pick up steam after the liberation of Paris from the Wehrmacht, an occupation that left Balenciaga in far better shape than most designers by virtue of his access to the fabrics and creature comforts of neutral Spain. By the end of Paris’ rationing period, Balenciaga had permanently ensconced his place among fashion royalty, with Vogue proclaiming that his spring 1950 collection was “nothing short of spectacular” and Harper’s Weekly hailing him as “the most elegant courtier in the world today” the same year. (82) Although Blume constantly proclaims Balenciaga’s greatness, at one point declaring that in the “profitably dystopian fashion of our times” it can be difficult to “imagine an approach whose aim, and achievement, was quite simply beauty” (131) one would fail to get a real sense for the particular mastery of fabric that Balenciaga achieved without the help of the book’s generous selection photographs. Interspersed throughout the text itself, the photographs arguably tell more about Balenciaga’s unmatched skill and gradual evolution as a designer than Blume does in her own narrative. However, there is something to be said about the anecdote offered about how deep Balenciaga’s notorious perfectionism could run. One particularly telling incident involves …show more content…
The hagiographical title of Blume’s work is in fact a direct quote from Dior himself. Blume writes that although Balenciaga maintained a polite relationship with Dior and was present at his funeral in 1957, “he could have only hated the restricting hourglass shapes, the skirts stiffened with horsehair instead of being skillfully cut, and the idea that each season must produce a marketable different look instead of evolving from the past.” (78) If anyone was actually the target of his ire, barring his long standing hatred for Women’s Wear Daily, it would be Coco Chanel. Chanel originally considered Balenciaga a close friend and brilliant designer, calling him “the only true courtier in the true sense of the word.” (89) However, in typical Chanel fashion, she brutally turned on him after he turned down a joint photoshoot for Women’s Wear Daily, as the magazine had recently hired a squad of paparazzi to photograph him on his way to work whenever possible. Upon hearing this, Chanel instead gave an English-language interview to Women’s Wear where she outed him as gay and alleged that his designs were perennially lackluster because a homosexual man like him could never understand a woman’s body. Upon hearing about this public betrayal from an English-speaking friend, Balenciaga was despondent, and sent back every single gift Chanel had given him over the years. Once again, contrast
The Master of Us All begins to pick up steam after the liberation of Paris from the Wehrmacht, an occupation that left Balenciaga in far better shape than most designers by virtue of his access to the fabrics and creature comforts of neutral Spain. By the end of Paris’ rationing period, Balenciaga had permanently ensconced his place among fashion royalty, with Vogue proclaiming that his spring 1950 collection was “nothing short of spectacular” and Harper’s Weekly hailing him as “the most elegant courtier in the world today” the same year. (82) Although Blume constantly proclaims Balenciaga’s greatness, at one point declaring that in the “profitably dystopian fashion of our times” it can be difficult to “imagine an approach whose aim, and achievement, was quite simply beauty” (131) one would fail to get a real sense for the particular mastery of fabric that Balenciaga achieved without the help of the book’s generous selection photographs. Interspersed throughout the text itself, the photographs arguably tell more about Balenciaga’s unmatched skill and gradual evolution as a designer than Blume does in her own narrative. However, there is something to be said about the anecdote offered about how deep Balenciaga’s notorious perfectionism could run. One particularly telling incident involves …show more content…
The hagiographical title of Blume’s work is in fact a direct quote from Dior himself. Blume writes that although Balenciaga maintained a polite relationship with Dior and was present at his funeral in 1957, “he could have only hated the restricting hourglass shapes, the skirts stiffened with horsehair instead of being skillfully cut, and the idea that each season must produce a marketable different look instead of evolving from the past.” (78) If anyone was actually the target of his ire, barring his long standing hatred for Women’s Wear Daily, it would be Coco Chanel. Chanel originally considered Balenciaga a close friend and brilliant designer, calling him “the only true courtier in the true sense of the word.” (89) However, in typical Chanel fashion, she brutally turned on him after he turned down a joint photoshoot for Women’s Wear Daily, as the magazine had recently hired a squad of paparazzi to photograph him on his way to work whenever possible. Upon hearing this, Chanel instead gave an English-language interview to Women’s Wear where she outed him as gay and alleged that his designs were perennially lackluster because a homosexual man like him could never understand a woman’s body. Upon hearing about this public betrayal from an English-speaking friend, Balenciaga was despondent, and sent back every single gift Chanel had given him over the years. Once again, contrast