“The master of us all,” is how Christian Dior once described Cristóbal Balenciaga, the rare couturier who could construct a garment from start to finish. Born in the coastal village of Getaria, this precocious talent worked locally under the patronage of the Marquesa de Casa Torres before establishing his own house, Elsa, father afield in Barcelona and Madrid. After his “flourishing business in Spain was ruined by the revolution,” as Vogue put it, he “started all over again and made a success in Paris.” That reset took place in 1937 and for that reason the maison Balenciaga has been aligned with the ’30s—an era of elegance—at Vogue World Paris, which is organized by decades.
“We have no trace of these looks in the archives or in museums,” explains fashion curator Alexandre Samson, yet under Demna’s careful guidance, working with photographic evidence, one drawing and a news clipping, the maison was able to reproduce two looks from the couturier’s pre-war years in Paris. Both dresses are rendered in graphic black and white, “a very ’30s, very drama look,” notes Samson. Perhaps dramatic times called for dramatic looks; the fall 1939 collection was presented during the so-called Phoney war (drôle de guerre), and fall 1940 lineup in an Occupied Paris.
Inspired by Las Meninas by Velasquez, the fall 1939 look, all in black, has a splendidly full skirt, and white fringe that starts at the wrists, traces up the arms then continues in a V-shape down the torso (creating a corset-like shape) and then extends across the panniered hips and around the back outlining the train. For the recreation, the Balenciaga atelier used black silk faille from Como and white silk-and-viscose fringe. As “Demna wanted it to be as close to the original piece as possible,” the maison reported, a canvas toile was made before the final garment, which took 135 hours to make, a good portion of which was devoted to the intricate fringing. First a single layer of the trim was set “into a seam twisting around the dress,” then two more were hand-applied under the seam to create a luxurious effect. But that’s not all. To alter the brightness of the white, the fringe was hand-colored for an “aged effect.” To support the volume of the dress and emphasize the silhouette, it is worn over a structured basque.
Balenciaga, mid-season 1939
Balenciaga, fall 1939 couture
Though not depicted in Vogue, sleuthing in the Vogue archive provides interesting context around the remake. The couturier seemed to be in a “Spanish” mood in 1939. In June, the magazine said his mid-season evening looks were “magnificently Goya-esque.” In August, the magazine reported that “Balenciaga made several majestic Velasquez costumes [for a costume party], which looked so handsome that we believe he will continue them in his autumn collection.” (Fancy-dress balls were all the rage at the time, as if people were dancing on the edge of a volcano.) The magazine’s September issues enthused about “Balenciaga’s wide Velasquez pannier dresses,” which gives us some idea of the company this dress was first shown.
Fashion reporting had thinned by 1940, as, wrote a Vogue correspondent, “Paris is a city of silence and sadness,” yet a can-do attitude generally prevailed among the couturiers, Balenciaga among them. The dress the maison has recreated, look 54 from the fall collection of that year, has a declarative confidence that comes through loud and clear in black and white made of a stiff “Ducal” slipper satin, that WWD reported was all the rage at the time. As with the 1939 recreation, Demna started with a toile, and the dress is worn over a basque that emphasizes the hips. It’s cut from a silk slipper satin from Como that was, the maison tells us, “lightly sanded to create a worn effect; it was important to Demna that the dress didn’t appear to be new.” 100 hours of work went into bringing this piece of history to life. Vive la France!
