Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Images are beautiful bright and vivid. Very slight tan to page edges. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Crist?bal Balenciaga Eisaguirre (1895-1972) is perhaps the best- known Spanish fashion designer of the twentieth century and his career has been outlined in many books and articles. It is thus common knowledge that his life comprised three phases. Between 1895 and 1935-6 he lived in Spain training as a tailor in San Sebastian and Madrid and setting up his own dressmaking establishments in these cities; in 1937 he made his mark on Paris by opening the House of Balenciaga which he ran for the next thirty-one years; and from 1968 he lived in retirement until his death in 1972 at the age of seventy-seven. The bald facts are clear and simple but there is a dearth of material on his preoccupations and views and on the motivating forces behind his very successful career. Balenciaga’s own obsession with privacy – a most unusual obsession in the annals of a profession renowned for its proclama- tions exaggerations and love of self-publicity is partially respon- sible. Little systematic historical research has taken place since Balen- ciaga’s fairly recent death although several retrospective exhibi- tions their catalogues and a single monograph have begun to put his career and work into perspective. They owe much to the cataloguing and research of Marie Andr?e Jouve archivist at the House of Balenciaga and expert on his life and designs. Since 1981 she has visited and documented not only the large collections of his clothes and drawings preserved in Paris but also those in other major cities of the world. The collection of which she is curator is considerable in its own right comprising some 300 garments by Balenciaga and over 3000 drawings. (LL)