THE BALENCIAGA SAGA
As an exhibition on the revolutionary designer opens at the V&A, we salute his most iconic clients
With his simple but showstopping silhouettes, CRISTOBAL BALENCIAGA revolutionised fashion and garnered fans among the most glamorous tastemakers of the postwar era. As an exhibition of his work opens at the V&A,
Richard Dennen salutes his starriest devotees
Jackie Kennedy
The first lady and fashion influencer was a big fan of the Paris couturiers, particularly Balenciaga.
BIGGEST FAN? John F Kennedy was so worried that the American public would be upset by his wife’s lavish penchant for Balenciaga that they fought about it – it was rumoured that his father paid Jackie’s Balenciaga bills to keep it secret. Due to her husband’s disapproval, Jackie had the US designer Oleg Cassini copy many of Balenciaga’s designs for her official ‘American’ wardrobe. FASHION MOMENT Jackie made the pillbox hat, invented by Balenciaga, a global fashion trend.
Ava Gardner
The Hollywood star discovered the Madrid branch of Balenciaga’s couture house, Eisa (where some of his designs could be bought more cheaply than in Paris), while she
JFK and Jackie fought over her lavish penchant for Balenciaga
was in Spain filming The Barefoot
Contessa with Humphrey Bogart in the early 1950s.
BIGGEST FAN? Ava’s lifelong love of Balenciaga began with her Madrid purchases: a pale gold silk damask evening dress with a cape and an evening coat with ostrich-feather cuffs. She later donated much of her collection to the V&A. FASHION MOMENT Her pink La Tulipe dress is one of the star pieces of the V&A exhibition. Its plain front with a hem segueing into a petal shape and a complex back featuring a large bow is classic Balenciaga.
Mona von Bismarck
One of the world’s richest women and the first to be voted ‘best dressed woman in the world’, all her clothes were by Balenciaga – including her gardening shorts.
BIGGEST FAN? In 1963, Mona ordered 88 Balenciaga outfits (each one would typically take three fittings), and over the next two years she bought a further 140 items. When the news broke in 1968 that Balenciaga had shut up shop, Diana Vreeland, the legendary US Vogue editor who was staying with her, said: ‘Mona didn’t come out of her room for three days. I mean... it was the end of a certain part of her life!’
FASHION MOMENT A pale blue satin Balenciaga evening coat, which she wore for a famous Cecil Beaton photo shoot in Paris in 1955.
Audrey Hepburn
The gamine actress is best known for her relationship with Hubert de Givenchy, but Balenciaga was also an important designer for her.
BIGGEST FAN? Audrey loved Balenciaga’s designs so much that, at one of his shows in the early 60s, she turned to Diana Vreeland and asked her why she ‘wasn’t frothing at the mouth’ at what she was seeing.
FASHION MOMENT While she famously wore Givenchy to events and in films, Audrey was often snapped in Balenciaga by the Italian paparazzi during the 1960s, when she spent a lot of time in Rome.
Wallis Simpson One of Balenciaga’s most loyal clients, Wallis Simpson wore his suits to lunch at New York’s Colony Club and his gowns for Paris balls.
BIGGEST FAN? The duchess often wore Balenciaga for official portraits. In 1962 she was drawn for Women’s Wear Daily by illustrator Kenneth Paul Block wearing a Balenciaga linen dress. He later wrote that they tried to come up with a name for the colour of the dress: he suggested ‘borscht’, she preferred ‘raspberry soufflé’. And it was inadvertently thanks to Wallis that the world’s first blockbuster fashion exhibition, held at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1973, was on Balenciaga. Special consultant Diana Vreeland had originally asked if she could show the late duke’s clothes, but despite initially saying yes, the duchess later changed her mind. With no time to spare, Vreeland turned to Balenciaga, who had died two months before the duke in 1972.
FASHION MOMENT Givenchy said that his ultimate vision of elegance was the duchess of Windsor standing in a window at one of the famous balls held at Paris’s Hôtel Lambert wearing a yellow Balenciaga dress with jewels to match.
Gloria Guinness
The wife of politician Thomas ‘Loel’ Guinness (left) was a central figure of the postwar social scene and a keen Balenciaga client. She was also a Harper’s Bazaar contributing editor in the 60s and a regular on international bestdressed lists.
BIGGEST FAN? Gloria liked Balenciaga’s simple necklines, and the fact that, by pulling his jacket collars back an inch from the neck, he was ‘allowing women and their pearls to breathe’. Many of her pieces feature in the V&A exhibition.
FASHION MOMENT A black silk evening gown and cape from 1967, which displays his mastery of cut.