Cristóbal Balenciaga liked more than anything to work with lace, black, red, and white as references to the art and culture of his Spanish homeland. Influenced by Goya and Zuloaga paintings, fascinated by the attire of Spanish religious figures, Balenciaga also turned to Asia to dress up iconic women of his time. Miren Arzallus in his reference work Cristóbal Balenciaga: La forge du Maître wrote: “Balenciaga had knowledge of the progression of Japonism during his stay in San Sebastian and the impact that this had on the first decades of the 20th century. This influence would have a spectacular influence on his own creations.” But this stylist was first and foremost an autodidact couturier, ambidextrous and attached to the composition of clothing as well as the precision of cuts. His competence as a tailor would soon unite with his ability to build and deconstruct sleeves until he was able to grasp the smallest details. This is how Cristóbal Balenciaga became a couturier able to apprehend the liberty in a piece’s construction. With his experimentation with sleeves, he undoubtedly was focused on some of the most ancestral sleeves in human history: kimono sleeves.
“Balenciaga began his research on volumes and proportions with the ‘kimono sleeve’, which he used for the first time in 1939. The influence of Japan was both subtle and constant.” This is how Vogue On Cristóbal Balenciaga puts it. Cristóbal Balenciaga borrowed the originality of his lines from Asia as well – soon, kimono sleeves would be accompanied by silhouettes with such a simple appearance that they seemed disconnected from the laws of gravity. Like a sample taster of minimalism, Balenciaga’s couture often freed the neck and the wrists to highlight jewelry and the movement of the hands. It’s said that he got this taste for Japanese clothing from Madeleine Vionnet, who was also very interested in kimonos. In the 50s and 60s, Cristóbal Balenciaga laid the foundations for a number of his most innovative designs. In 1962, he introduced pleats in fabric and reinvented the female silhouette – goodbye straight lines! This couturier of couturiers stretched the center of gravity of the garment out to the shoulders. The direct inspiration is the Kabuki coat.
For him, sleeves had to adhere to the body – they had to be its natural elongation, falling back down in solemn silence. Balenciaga understood his kimono sleeves with a flexibility allowing for free movements that wouldn’t modify the rest of the silhouette in any way. Nicolas Ghesquière was able to take up where the founder left off in 1997. Each year, he would rerelease one of the label’s cornerstone pieces. The kimono sleeves made a comeback on the runway in 2006 during his famed Spring/Summer collection. Worked in a combo with lace, another of Balenciaga’s signatures, the kimono sleeves attained a wild level of desirability when the French designer executed with absolute mastery. The sleeves took on lace which, in a whirlwind of materials, highlighted and followed the slightest curves of the body. In 2007, Ghesquière brought Irina Lazareanu down the runway with a celestially light bolero that played with transparency, another of the founder’s favorites, topped off by crazily sensual sleeves.
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