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Goya's Cardinal Luis
Maria de Borbón y Vallabriga
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Right: Francisco de Goya's Cardinal Luis Maria de Borbón y Vallabriga, 1800
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Diego Velázquez' 1653 painting of the Infanta Margarita
Right: Balenciaga's illustration of the dress
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whose dress Balenciaga used as an inspiration
Right: Picasso's Version
Shameless art destroyer and fellow Spaniard (who
went to art school) did his own version of the Infanta
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whose designer, Nicolas Ghesquiere, calls her his muse.
Ghesquiere is another one of those contemporary
designers who cannot see beauty if he was given the moon.
Ugliness is his curse.
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While looking for a Gardenia perfume, a salesman at the Bay's general perfume counter suggested I try Balenciaga's eponymous scent. It is really very good, with a delicate, yet enduring floral/powdery scent. He gave me two samples. The usual salesman I go to had been promoted to the Givenchy counter. I usually show him my latest finds from various magazines. He is often impressed that I know more than him about perfume, at least for that day.
A pleasant saleswoman at Eaton's also gave me a sample bottle. And at Sephora's, my favorite perfume store, the salesgirl "prepared" a sample tube for me. I told her that I was really glad that perfume makers are creating stronger scents with distinct floral overtones, unlike the insipid fruity concoctions that are so popular these days. I said that this means that women want to be like women, rather than like adolescent girls. I said that I wished that would transfer into fashion, which is now a disaster with all the shorts and flip-flops that women are wearing.
"Think of the beautiful, well-constructed, clothes of the fifties. How daring were they, with those amazing color combination! Now all we have is grey, beige or black, with slivers of color mostly in the ugly prints on t-shirts," I said.
"I wouldn't want to go back to the fifties. They were really restrictive on women," replied this nice woman.
Feminism rears its ugly head in unexpected places. I thought this woman, who works in a perfume store, would have some appreciation for beauty and beautiful clothes. Yet all she sees is that feminine clothes are "restrictive." In her eyes, women should dress like androgynous blobs since feminine clothing makes them suffer.
Actually, she has it all wrong. The cellulite-baring skirts and shorts that are a couple of sizes too small which women wear these days surely leave them unable to walk or sit comfortably. And on the other extreme, I'm noticing a reaction to all this lost femininity, where women are wearing such high heels that I'm afraid to look at them in case of the inevitable fall. Fifties heels were much lower, and much more feminine.
I think this nice lady felt bad disagreeing with me (she was a little emphatic), and gave me ah handful of samples, including Tom Ford's and Marc Jacobs' Gardenia scents.
Of course, true to our postmodern world, Balenciaga's perfume is being advertized by the androgynous (and ugly) French celebrity Charlotte Gainsbourg. She is the daughter of the French Jewish singer Serge Gainsbourg (the Leonard Cohen of France), and the awful English actress Jane Birkin, whose breathy songs in heavily accented French somehow made it into the French song charts.
Still, the perfume is lovely. The perfume designer is Olivier Polge.
I have to add, though, that Balenciaga is of the "gay fashion designers" group. Valentino, who does equally lovely feminine clothes, was another homosexual prominent in women's fashion design. Both, at least to give them some credit, were of the old school, and didn't flaunt their homosexuality, unlike a stream of contemporary "gay" designers that thrust their egos at us. And not surprisingly, Valentino and Balenciaga spent their energy designing beautiful clothes, while the Gallianos and McQueens (what an apt name) of our time give us their distorted egos instead. But, as many high level designers show us, gayness is not a prerequisite for a male to have have a career in fashion design.
Here are the main notes for Balenciaga:
bergamot, spices, violet,
carnation, oakmoss,
cedar, vetiver, patchouli
And as this perfume blogger writes: "it's quietly elegant...[and] modern and grown-up."
That best describes the classic Balenciaga fashion design as well.
Several books have come out on Balenciaga since 2011. And there was the 2010 exhibition Balenciaga: Spanish Master at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York which
examines the influence of Spanish culture on the late, great couturier. Conceived by designer Oscar de la Renta and curated by Vogue’s European Editor at Large and vintage couture authority, Hamish Bowles, the spectacular show examines how Cristóbal Balenciaga was influenced by Spanish royal court––and regional––dress, religious ceremony, dance, art, and bullfighting.
Below are some of Balenciaga's (the original) designs, mostly from the 1950s.
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