How Velazquez and Goya inspired haute couture for the 20th century's most daring fashion designer

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Cristobal Balenciaga once said that. Not surprisingly, in the 20th century, he ruled high fashion with innovative clothing inspired by unusually traditional Spanish sources. The Basque fashion designer took cues from regional clothing, folk costumes, bullfighting, flamenco dances, Catholicism and, of course, from the history of painting. And in the end, he created something that conquered the world for centuries.

The Balenciaga collection is full of chunky silhouettes, slouching shoulders and neat trousers. But the fashion house today, under the leadership of Demna Gvasalia, presents a very different aesthetic than what Cristobal himself did during his lifetime., explains Eloy Martinez de la Pera, curator of the new exhibition Balenciaga and Spanish Painting in Madrid, which brings together ninety Balenciaga couture pieces along with 56 masterpieces of Spanish painting that have inspired the designer. … And in order to truly get to know Cristobal himself, it is important to know the key elements of Spanish art that have shaped his aesthetic vision.

The 20th century may have been the dawn of modern fashion, but the boldly modern sculptural silhouettes of Balenciaga gowns resonate with the styles worn by painted ladies and religious figures hundreds of years ago. When 41-year-old Cristobal Balenciaga moved to Paris in 1936, he began to miss his native Spain. Abruptly expelled from home in the midst of the Civil War in his home country and immersed in the heartbeat of the European haute couture scene, he sought inspiration, immersed in the memories of his childhood in the small town of Getaria in the Basque Country, most of which he spent in the company of his mother, a seamstress and her aristocratic clients. Meeting the gorgeous collections of these clients as a child sparked a lifelong fascination with the old master painting, becoming a passion that produced the billowing shapes, voluminous cuts, minimalist lines and bold colors that became the hallmark of the talented Spaniard.

1. El Greco - color

Evening dress in lush pink satin with an ensemble of bodice, jacket and skirt in red taffeta. You could never have imagined that these 1960s couturier designs were inspired by the Virgin Mary - but once they are contrasted with El Greco's monumental Annunciation paintings, it is impossible not to compare the vibrant hues of the Virgin's uplifting robes to the sumptuous tones of Balenciaga's outfit. Likewise, the color of the heavenly vestments of the Archangel Gabriel echoes Balenciaga's elegant mustard satin evening gown (1960) and a bright yellow silk gown with an evening cape with feathers (1967). El Greco's vivid use of color entered Cristobal's imagination when he met the artist at the palace of the Marquise of Casa Torres (one of his mother's most important clients), becoming the centerpiece of the rainbow-colored pieces that Balenciaga produced in Paris in the 1940s and 1950s.

2. Court painting - black

If before that there were bright greens, yellows, blues and pinks that Balenciaga took from El Greco, then in the Spanish court painting of the late 16th-17th centuries he discovered his love for black.

It is also worth mentioning that Balenciaga's signature color has deep roots in fashion history, but especially in Spanish culture. At the court of Philip II, black became the main status symbol. Timeless color remains one of the archetypes of Spanish identity, according to a press release, possibly due to the influence of Balenciaga. In 1938, Harper's Bazaar characterized Balenciaga's shade in physical terms:.

The 1943 high collar black satin gown has matching silk buttons running from the waist to the collar, with two vertical white stripes cascading elegantly along the length of the gown. The clothing almost resembles the robe of a priest. That being said, the designer also reflects a minimalist take on the primly conservative black dresses favored by fashionable Habsburg courtiers such as the ruffled Countess Miranda in an undated painting attributed to the 16th century artist Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. In contrast to Balenciaga's stripped-down designs, the Countess accentuates her outfit with jewels embroidered on her sleeves and skirt, a technique that Balenciaga himself has popularized in other, more dressy projects.

3. Velazquez - form

Sometimes the designer took all kinds of sketches literally from the history of art. His 1939 Infanta dress is a modern update of the outfit worn by the little Infanta Margarita of Austria in Diego Velazquez's famous 1956 Menina. And the longer you look at this picture, the more questions arise. The fact is that scientists have analyzed it for more than three centuries and still have not decided on its meaning.

- wrote the art historian and expert Velazquez Jonathan Brown in his 1986 book Velasquez: The Artist and the Courtier. Nearly two decades later, during a 2014 lecture at The Frick Collection, he joked, “adding:.

The enigmatic group portrait of the Las Meninas clan is inhabited by a strange cast of characters, including a princess, a nun, a dwarf and the Baroque artist himself. And the sharp divergence from traditional royal portraiture was compared by many to a snapshot, in the sense that this painting combines the richness of action, leaving behind many misunderstood hidden hints and implications. And it is not at all surprising that Cristobal, looking at this work, thought for a long time about how to translate his plans into reality. And then, having come to a consensus, being already in Paris, he created a cream silk satin dress with red velvet.

4. Zurbaran - volume

During World War II, fabrics for women's clothing were mostly restricted in Europe, reserved instead for military use. Thus, Balenciaga was part of the post-war boom in the abundant use of fabrics, as evidenced by the large volume and layering of his dresses. Curator Martinez de la Pera describes Francisco de Zurbaran - best known for his religious paintings - as "the first fashion stylist in art history." In his portraits of Santa Casilda (1630-1635) and Santa Isabel de Portugal (1635), he fancifully depicts holy figures in costumes that may today look suitable for the runway. While the paintings depict scenes of mercy and piety, Balenciaga was struck by the thick layer of skirts sacredly (but playfully) clutched in the hands of women. Meanwhile, the lush, creamy white robes of the monks of Zurbaran paved the way for the sparkly ivory wedding gowns that Balenciaga specially tailored for the likes of Belgium's Queen Fabiola and Carmen Martinez Bordiu (Franco's granddaughter).

5. Goya - material

Bettina Ballard, editor of 50s Vogue magazine, once said: "Goya, whether Balenciaga realizes it or not, is always looking over his shoulder." The portraits of the artist Duchess Alba (1795) and the Marquise Lazan (1804) show translucent lace ornaments on women's white dresses. This seductive sensation of lace turned Balenciaga's world upside down. Goya's ability to represent the transparency of fabrics drove him to strive for laces, tulles and silks thin enough to hide and reveal at once - materials that appeared on several dresses he made in Paris. Perhaps it was Goya who pushed Cristobal to the ability to break a flowing shape with a sudden strong line - just like the delicate white dress of the Duchess of Alba is interrupted by a bright red bow tied tightly around her waist.

The Catholic spirit is also unmistakably manifested when paired with Francisco de Goya. The romantic portrait of the artist in the red dress of Cardinal Luis Maria de Bourbon y Vallabriga from about 1800 has been compared to a red satin dress and a beaded cropped jacket from 1960. The dramatic, rounded tiers of the cardinal's red and white robes are updated in a structured, puffy designer silhouette, rendered in an equally heavy satin fabric. The Balenciaga ensemble was one of the main elements of elegant 1960s fashion - Jackie O, who was a fan of the style, but in this context, it is rooted in the past. In addition to its sedate religious connotations, the sparkling silver leaves sewn into the jacket give the garment the bold look of a matador bolero.

One of the last paintings in the exhibition, Ignacio Zuloaga 1921 oil portrait of the Duchess of Alba, bears witness to the fruitful push between art, fashion and history. The Basque contemporary artist and acquaintance of Balenciaga revived the flamenco tradition in a wavy red tiered duchess dress that seems to allude to brooding portraits of fashionable women like Queen Marie Louise. The dress is almost identical to the stunning version of Balenciaga's layered 1952 outfit, which consists of three bulky taffeta layers. And despite the fact that in such a dress you definitely cannot dance properly, nevertheless, the spirit of flamenco is present in it in all its glory.

But unfortunately, all good things come to an end sooner or later. Balenciaga lost his prominence as the "king of high fashion" in the late 1960s with the advent of prêt-a-porter-ready-to-wear fashion popularized by Yves Saint Laurent. However, the fashion house continues to live under the leadership of Vetements provocateur Demna Gvasalia. Under his leadership, Cristobal's modern renewal in the Spanish artistic tradition has been radically transformed: the most popular item offered by the brand today is a pair of oversized Triple S polyester sneakers, worth nearly a thousand dollars, far from the luxurious fabrics and meticulous detailing of Balenciaga.

However, Balenciaga's work offers a modern audience something other than fashion inspiration. The exhibition redefines the history of art from a more flexible point of view, in which artists have had the same influence on fashion as well as vice versa. In our era, fashion and art have never been more intertwined, both in the fashion business and in the popular imagination. This rethinking has become widespread, with the proliferation of stylistically tuned Instagram accounts that dissect fantastic material moments in works of art, loved and unknown alike. Balenciaga realized early on that painting, representation and fashion are inextricably linked and that it is this intoxicating combination that can speak simultaneously with the past, present and future.

You can find out and what the most fashionable clothes looked like at that time from the next article.