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Ghesquiere re releases Balenciaga's vintage gems
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These days vintage is so clamored-for that even designers are investing in the creations of those who came before. Nicolas Ghesquière, helmsman of the inventive and well-seasoned label Balenciaga, is digging deep into the couture house’s archives and reproducing looks from Balenciaga himself.
Born in Spain in 1895, Cristóbal Balenciaga was forced to close his first retailers during the Spanish Civil War and moved to Paris, where he opened his couture house in 1937 and built it into a fashion institution. Since 2004, the genius of a designer who enjoyed seeing his creations on members of the Spanish crown has been re-released for our generation. Twenty-six designs from Balenciaga’s Paris house made between 1932 and 1967 will comprise the newest season of Edition, Ghesquière’s name for the new-old line.
To call any of the items a re-imagining would be a gross underestimation – those at Balenciaga have been hard laboring to keep every stitch identical. Other houses have followed suit, such as Pucci and Jil Sander, who often had to special order old fabrics or call in retired tailors to show the younger designers how it’s done.
Though part of what makes fashion so dynamic is the artist’s constant push to move forward, the replication of these designs is a celebration of beautiful clothing that inspired hordes of designers today. Besides, judging from Balenciaga’s 2008 ready-to-wear line, the house is obviously still rife with inventive energy, evident in their oft-worn structural black dress that graced dozens of magazine pages and Charlize Theron alike.
However, when selecting the items for re-release out of the house’s archives, Ghesquière seems to be experiencing a replay of my Saturday afternoons, commenting to W magazine, “I just go there as if I were going to the most beautiful vintage store, and I pick what I think is right for the moment.”
Way to think like the rest of us vintage-heads, Nicolas. If it ain’t broke…
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