from
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/09/style/fbal.php
Being Balenciaga: Futurism with craft
By Suzy Menkes International Herald Tribune
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2005
PARIS It is a long way from designing Japanese widows' weeds to dressing a Hollywood star in fine feathers. But as Nicolas Ghesquière climbed the steps of the Metropolitan Museum in New York last week with Jennifer Connelly like a white cygnet at his side, he was celebrating his 10-year career trajectory at Balenciaga.
As designer for the august and austere Paris house, Ghesquière, 35, is the most compelling designer of his generation. Unlike all the other creative forces brought in to relaunch faded French couture houses, Ghesquière came from within, moving through the golf and knitwear license department, working on special orders for Japan, becoming the official designer by default in 1997. By the time that Gucci Group bought the brand in 2001, the caterpillar had morphed into a butterfly.
His Balenciaga collections are strong and strange, but always intriguing and utterly individual. Ghesquière admits he is "a child of the 1980s," and his early collections were fecund with images of Princess Leia from "Star Wars." The futuristic elements are still there, but with his emphasis on surgical cutting and dense, in-built embellishment, Ghesquière has established an unexpected rapport with the work of Cristobal Balenciaga.
The restrained Spanish-born designer had opened his house in Paris in 1937 and closed it in 1968, when the youthquake revolution shook France. He died in 1972.
"Because Balenciaga disappeared for 30 years, there is purity about it," says Ghesquière, who worked for six years with no access to the rich archives of sculpted suits and gowns, all in the sumptuous fabrics created by the so-called "monk" of fashion.
In recent seasons, Ghesquière has been able to study the vintage clothes, which seems to have brought to his work a nuanced, modern elegance. More directly, under his guidance, the house, based on the Paris Left Bank, each season produces a capsule collection called "Edition" in which Balenciaga's original sketches are reinterpreted.
With his dark hair and full mouth, Ghesquière looks like a musketeer from the d'Artagnan era. But like Balenciaga himself, who was the son of a pleasure-boat captain in San Sebastián, Ghesquière describes a relatively humble background in the small French village of Loudon, where the population was 1,000, his parents ran a golf course and the young boy dreamed of the fashions of the 1980s from Agnès B, Azzedine Alaïa, Comme des Garçons, Dorothée Bis and Sonia Rykiel that he saw in his mother's magazines.
"But even if my parents were very simple, it was an environment of privilege in a region with historical architecture and grand old houses," Ghesquière says. His regular swimming in the Ritz swimming pool today is a legacy of a sporty childhood, where - whether it was diving, skiing or horseback riding - he and his elder brother were pressured by their father to come out winners.
Ghesquière soon left the provinces for Paris, where he worked briefly with Thierry Mugler, focusing on knitwear, which is still one of his strengths. The sweaters with tails dangling from epaulettes and the complex patchworks of different stitches bring a craft element that offsets the futurism of his Balenciaga style.
In 1990, he worked with Jean Paul Gaultier for two years, in which Ghesquière learned "an aesthetic of mixing." In that early period, he was a freelance designer, working as a consultant for Stéphane Kelian shoes and for Balenciaga's licenses from 1995. He created golfwear for the Japanese market and mourning dresses "that had to be black and a certain length but could be very fitted."
Perhaps that experience makes Ghesquière far more willing to look at the licenses than most high-profile designers. His experience with Gucci Group has been bittersweet. After being invited in by the charismatic Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole and opening new shops in Paris and New York, Ghesquière found himself branded "difficult." By the time "Tom and Dom" had departed and Robert Polet, Gucci Group's new chief executive, was dismissing Balenciaga as "an emerging brand," Ghesquière realized that the 70-year-old label had been given just three years to turn a profit. The management of Balenciaga is overseen by James McArthur of Gucci Group, but it has no CEO. Ghesquière's own contract is up for renewal in July 2006.
Without compromising his artistic integrity, Ghesquière has worked to turn his talent into a buck. The cult, narrow fit Balenciaga pants and his influential cargo pants in soft silks are now sold in a category of their own, along with new introductions such as "knits," "leather," "silk" and "Edition," where the Balenciaga bell-shaped skirts chimed with fashion's new volumes.
Ghesquière's hit "Lariat" bag with multizippers, a braided handle and dangling pulls became a fixture on the arms of hip chicks like Kate Moss and set a palpable trend. The next move is to buy back the rights to the fragrances when that license expires at the end of the year.
"I have more confidence now - I feel better supported with a better structure, and it is showing results," says Ghesquière, referring to revenues and shop sales on the rise. But more important for the fashion world, so in need of a new force for the future, the designer's collections are also growing stronger.
Ghesquière learned from the archives not only that his own bold scuba diving prints were in tune with Balenciaga's "full on" patterns, but that the couturier, with 400 seamstresses, had to turn his conceptual shows into clothes that "were about the commercial reality of clients."
Now Ghesquière goes to the archives to look for inspiration for the high collars or even to re-create the sharp tailoring of an Air France uniform that Balenciaga designed. He is increasingly intrigued by couture effects like feathers, planning to "meld craft and the industrial, combining high tech and things finished by hand." And he has his own ideas about where the brand should stand.
"I would like to position Balenciaga between Chanel and Prada," he says. "I see the success achieved with the heritage of Chanel and I know that Balenciaga in its day was considered to be modern like Prada."
Unlike Balenciaga, who draped and molded fabric directly, Ghesquière starts with sketches, drawing frantically as he has done since he was a child. There is then a "séance de travail," or working meeting, with his 12 close-knit and loyal staff members. Then the modelists are charged with turning the ideas on paper into three dimensional reality.
Eagerly solicited by other luxury groups and with a distant dream of having his own label, will Ghesquière be able to stay - in his head or in reality - with Balenciaga?
He says that he may suddenly feel the need to be more experimental in his work, but that now he is deeply involved in breathing fresh life into the Balenciaga heritage, as well as in planning "corners" in department stores such as Harrods in London.
In spite of Balenciaga's weighty legacy, Ghesquière insists that he never looks back. "It is a fashion moment of nostalgia and reference - but I hope to be creative without both," he says.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/09/style/fbal.php
Being Balenciaga: Futurism with craft
By Suzy Menkes International Herald Tribune
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2005
PARIS It is a long way from designing Japanese widows' weeds to dressing a Hollywood star in fine feathers. But as Nicolas Ghesquière climbed the steps of the Metropolitan Museum in New York last week with Jennifer Connelly like a white cygnet at his side, he was celebrating his 10-year career trajectory at Balenciaga.
As designer for the august and austere Paris house, Ghesquière, 35, is the most compelling designer of his generation. Unlike all the other creative forces brought in to relaunch faded French couture houses, Ghesquière came from within, moving through the golf and knitwear license department, working on special orders for Japan, becoming the official designer by default in 1997. By the time that Gucci Group bought the brand in 2001, the caterpillar had morphed into a butterfly.
His Balenciaga collections are strong and strange, but always intriguing and utterly individual. Ghesquière admits he is "a child of the 1980s," and his early collections were fecund with images of Princess Leia from "Star Wars." The futuristic elements are still there, but with his emphasis on surgical cutting and dense, in-built embellishment, Ghesquière has established an unexpected rapport with the work of Cristobal Balenciaga.
The restrained Spanish-born designer had opened his house in Paris in 1937 and closed it in 1968, when the youthquake revolution shook France. He died in 1972.
"Because Balenciaga disappeared for 30 years, there is purity about it," says Ghesquière, who worked for six years with no access to the rich archives of sculpted suits and gowns, all in the sumptuous fabrics created by the so-called "monk" of fashion.
In recent seasons, Ghesquière has been able to study the vintage clothes, which seems to have brought to his work a nuanced, modern elegance. More directly, under his guidance, the house, based on the Paris Left Bank, each season produces a capsule collection called "Edition" in which Balenciaga's original sketches are reinterpreted.
With his dark hair and full mouth, Ghesquière looks like a musketeer from the d'Artagnan era. But like Balenciaga himself, who was the son of a pleasure-boat captain in San Sebastián, Ghesquière describes a relatively humble background in the small French village of Loudon, where the population was 1,000, his parents ran a golf course and the young boy dreamed of the fashions of the 1980s from Agnès B, Azzedine Alaïa, Comme des Garçons, Dorothée Bis and Sonia Rykiel that he saw in his mother's magazines.
"But even if my parents were very simple, it was an environment of privilege in a region with historical architecture and grand old houses," Ghesquière says. His regular swimming in the Ritz swimming pool today is a legacy of a sporty childhood, where - whether it was diving, skiing or horseback riding - he and his elder brother were pressured by their father to come out winners.
Ghesquière soon left the provinces for Paris, where he worked briefly with Thierry Mugler, focusing on knitwear, which is still one of his strengths. The sweaters with tails dangling from epaulettes and the complex patchworks of different stitches bring a craft element that offsets the futurism of his Balenciaga style.
In 1990, he worked with Jean Paul Gaultier for two years, in which Ghesquière learned "an aesthetic of mixing." In that early period, he was a freelance designer, working as a consultant for Stéphane Kelian shoes and for Balenciaga's licenses from 1995. He created golfwear for the Japanese market and mourning dresses "that had to be black and a certain length but could be very fitted."
Perhaps that experience makes Ghesquière far more willing to look at the licenses than most high-profile designers. His experience with Gucci Group has been bittersweet. After being invited in by the charismatic Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole and opening new shops in Paris and New York, Ghesquière found himself branded "difficult." By the time "Tom and Dom" had departed and Robert Polet, Gucci Group's new chief executive, was dismissing Balenciaga as "an emerging brand," Ghesquière realized that the 70-year-old label had been given just three years to turn a profit. The management of Balenciaga is overseen by James McArthur of Gucci Group, but it has no CEO. Ghesquière's own contract is up for renewal in July 2006.
Without compromising his artistic integrity, Ghesquière has worked to turn his talent into a buck. The cult, narrow fit Balenciaga pants and his influential cargo pants in soft silks are now sold in a category of their own, along with new introductions such as "knits," "leather," "silk" and "Edition," where the Balenciaga bell-shaped skirts chimed with fashion's new volumes.
Ghesquière's hit "Lariat" bag with multizippers, a braided handle and dangling pulls became a fixture on the arms of hip chicks like Kate Moss and set a palpable trend. The next move is to buy back the rights to the fragrances when that license expires at the end of the year.
"I have more confidence now - I feel better supported with a better structure, and it is showing results," says Ghesquière, referring to revenues and shop sales on the rise. But more important for the fashion world, so in need of a new force for the future, the designer's collections are also growing stronger.
Ghesquière learned from the archives not only that his own bold scuba diving prints were in tune with Balenciaga's "full on" patterns, but that the couturier, with 400 seamstresses, had to turn his conceptual shows into clothes that "were about the commercial reality of clients."
Now Ghesquière goes to the archives to look for inspiration for the high collars or even to re-create the sharp tailoring of an Air France uniform that Balenciaga designed. He is increasingly intrigued by couture effects like feathers, planning to "meld craft and the industrial, combining high tech and things finished by hand." And he has his own ideas about where the brand should stand.
"I would like to position Balenciaga between Chanel and Prada," he says. "I see the success achieved with the heritage of Chanel and I know that Balenciaga in its day was considered to be modern like Prada."
Unlike Balenciaga, who draped and molded fabric directly, Ghesquière starts with sketches, drawing frantically as he has done since he was a child. There is then a "séance de travail," or working meeting, with his 12 close-knit and loyal staff members. Then the modelists are charged with turning the ideas on paper into three dimensional reality.
Eagerly solicited by other luxury groups and with a distant dream of having his own label, will Ghesquière be able to stay - in his head or in reality - with Balenciaga?
He says that he may suddenly feel the need to be more experimental in his work, but that now he is deeply involved in breathing fresh life into the Balenciaga heritage, as well as in planning "corners" in department stores such as Harrods in London.
In spite of Balenciaga's weighty legacy, Ghesquière insists that he never looks back. "It is a fashion moment of nostalgia and reference - but I hope to be creative without both," he says.
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Ghesquière!
