The Evolution of Balenciaga's Hero Silhouette

발렌시아가의 아카이브 전시 보러갔다가 50-60년대 크리스토발 발렌시아가 시대에 나온 피스들 보고 깜짝 놀랐다. 실루엣적인 면에서는 디올이나 샤넬보다도 훨씬 근사하고 예술적이다. 컷팅라인이나 볼륨이 환상이다. 여러 사이트에서 동시대 작품들 찾아서 저장해둔다.   

 

 

“Haute couture is like an orchestra, for which only Balenciaga is the conductor. The rest of us are just musicians, following the directions that he gives us” Christian Dior

These words famously pronounced by Christian Dior in 1955, at the height of his own career, perfectly summarise Cristóbal Balenciaga’s undisputed leading role in fashion during the 1950s and 1960s. However, this didn’t always seem such an obvious development. When Dior himself captivated women around the world with the presentation of his first collection in February 1947, he was also launching the dominant silhouette of the 1950s, soon to be known as the New Look. Featuring rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and very full skirt, the New Look celebrated opulence and a certain branch of voluptuous femininity. After years of military inspired fashions and sartorial restrictions resulting from war, Dior seemed to offer women exactly what they were aspiring to, even if this entailed reintroducing the corset in their wardrobes and in their lives.

In the early 1940s, Cristóbal Balenciaga had already initiated a creative path of his own, marked by a progressive experimentation with form and construction which aimed to establish a new relationship between body and garment. Balenciaga’s introduction of the cocoon silhouette played a vital role in this process.

This was closely related to the Japonism that influenced fashion at the beginning of the 20th century. Couturiers such as Paul Poiret, Callot Soeurs or Madeleine Vionnet incorporated the Japanese kimono into women’s dress, bringing with it an unfamiliar proportion that would revolutionise fashion over the next few decades. The characteristic arch over the back, the collar falling back to reveal the nape, the asymmetrical long hem, shorter at the front and longer at the back: these are the most definitive characteristics of this first Japonist cut. 

Profoundly influenced by the work of these early innovators, Balenciaga used his own interpretation of the shape to depart from established notions of beauty and femininity in the middle of the 20th century. It was precisely in February 1947 when Balenciaga presented the so-called “barrel line”, a liberating, cocoon-shaped silhouette which obliterated the waist and offered women an alternative way of moving and experiencing dress.

https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/8602/the-evolution-of-balenciagas-hero-silhouette

The Evolution of Balenciaga's Hero Silhouette

https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/couture-designs-by-cristobal-balenciaga-in-vogue-from-the-archives

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