Fashion As Art: Balenciaga

I’m going to see Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion at the V&A Museum today and I’m really quite excited.

Christobal Balenciaga was one of the Couture designers who really influenced and changed the way women dressed in the mid-twentieth century and his fashion is iconically known through the work of the eminent photographers of the day.

I’ve spent a little time this morning catching up, ordering a book or two, and simply enjoying the influential fashion as art produced by Balenciaga throughout his working career.

I’m posting a few of my favourite images here – past, present and illustrative – and am making a note to visit the Balenciaga Museum when I eventually travel to San Sebastián: read about this in Flung Magazine online. I did laugh at Sarah Stodola’s ambiguity about the ‘seriousness’ of fashion – I suspect all of us thinking fashionistas with a passion for intellectualising fashion both feel, and are made to feel, the same. I console myself with the thought that loving fashion as art does not preclude us from having a brain too and anyone who believes it does is somewhat lacking in the grey matter themselves.

I hope you like what you see here and do visit the V&A exhibition if you are able.

I must say that I particularly love the black and white, with orange legs, balloon dress from the Fall 2017 RTW collection below. It has such striking reference to vintage Balenciaga, don’t you think? I’ve been trying to draw it but just cannot produce anything that’s good enough – I shall have to keep trying, I guess.

Happy weekend. Smiles 🖤