2011-21 Sharing a legacy
This exhibition unveils ten representative pieces from the Museum's collection linked to ten significant milestones in the institution's activity this past decade, and in which ten of Balenciaga’s most inspiring values are displayed.
Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre (1895-1972) was one of the most influential fashion designers in history. During the five decades of his professional career, he directed his haute couture fashion houses in Spain -San Sebastian (1917), Madrid (1933), Barcelona (1935 - and France -Paris (1937) -. His name became synonymous with elegance, avant-garde, beauty and timelessness.
The scope of his person and the extraordinary quality of his work endow Balenciaga with a universality comparable to that of other great artists—from fashion, art or other cultural expressions—that also have had a determining influence on the aesthetics and values of their time. By virtue of his personality, his creativity and his business career, his legacy is not limited to the material work he left us. It also encompasses his own way of understanding himself and his work, which was an essential part of his undeniable success.
Balenciaga’s biography, work and values are, therefore, the three key aspects that converge in the genesis of the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, inaugurated on 7 June 2011 in Getaria, the town where the couturier was born and very close to where he spent his early years of learning and professional development. It therefore seems appropriate that now, in the context of its tenth anniversary, these are the three threads with which we weave the story of this digital exhibition.
This exhibition unveils ten representative pieces from the Museum's collection linked to ten significant milestones in the institution's activity this past decade, and in which ten of Balenciaga’s most inspiring values are displayed.