The appointment of Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton may represent the victory of the hype and the cult over precision and technical skills, but if you're a fan of architecture and construction, stop reading about hip brands and head instead to the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum in Getaria, Spain, to check out the "Moda y Patrimonio" (Fashion and Heritage) exhibition (until January 27, 2019).
The exhibition is conceived as a celebrative event: 2018 marks the 50th anniversary since the Master of Haute Couture retired in 1968, so the displays reflect on the heritage of Balenciaga's work from the moment he closed his salons and stopped activity at his workshops in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and San Sebastián. From then on, Balenciaga's creations started inhabiting the archives, galleries and museums and being studied by designers, researchers, fashion historians, fans and architects as well.
"Fashion and Heritage" is divided into two parts: one starts in 1917 - opening date of Balenciaga's first atelier in San Sebastián - until the moment his maisons closed their doors; the other goes from 1968 to today.
The museum collaborated on this project with a special guest curator - Judith Clark, director of the Centre for Fashion Curation at the University of the Arts London.
The narratives are constructed around 80 items of clothing (thirty of them never exhibited in the museum, some of them were delicately restored using surgical thread...), the pieces are chronologically ordered to show the evolution of the designer and they are accompanied by accessories, fashion magazines, documents, photographs, patterns and fabrics, a series of pieces that also reference previous exhibitions at the Balenciaga Museum and that should be intrepreted as study objects.
The spaces of the museum were radically altered by temporary walls that form an alternative layout with no glass cabinets. Wandering around them this open spaces it is possible to admire an elegant two-piece ensemble dated 1955, the red taffeta "Globo" gown and the iconic "baby-doll" dress, plus capes and coats and the uniforms for Air France characterised by clean and minimalist Space Age lines (the only ready-to-wear examples in the life of the couturier).
There are quite a few highlights and gems among the displays: check out the 1912 honeymoon dress that Balenciaga created for his cousin; the design Balenciaga sent to Givenchy as a present and the creations he designed for the women in his circle that show a more intimate side of the designer.
Visitors should look at the exhibition focusing on the evolution and revolutions Balenciaga went through: the authorised copy of a Lanvin design or a kimono he spotted in a book in the library of the Marquises de la Torre were indeed the starting points for his studies on body shapes, sculpted volumes and minimalist lines.
Technology plays a big role in the exhibition as visitors are offered new interpretations of Balenciaga's designs on interactive displays. Some creations were digitalised and can now be explored in all their 360 degree glory or they can be digitally disassembled to discover the patterns behind them, a trick that will finally allow many fashion students and fans as well to realise how Balenciaga's rich semantic revolved around clean lines and geometries, superb textiles and innovative volumes created by delicately sculpting fabric with air.
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