Better late than never. That was certainly the thinking when we set out after a long day in the store on Sunday evening for San Francisco, a six-hour drive north from home which ended the following morning on July 4 when we arrived inside the parking garage at the de Young Museum to catch the closing day of “Balenciaga and Spain."
It was well worth the impromptu road trip, as I'd hoped after receiving the sumptuous catalog on the show from our dear manager Rafael for my birthday in May. The breath-taking assemblage of frocks and hats inside the second floor of the de Young made it clear that Christian Dior's proclamation that his friend and fellow couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga was "master of us all" was not hyperbole.
The show was an opportunity to examine up close (well, as up close as one could get without tripping out security) what put Balenciaga among the gods of fashion: the elaborate embroidery like that covering the mantillas he grew up on; the less-is-more approach to architecturally inclined black dresses; the many, many fascinators and berets sending up the hats of matadors and other regional folk costumes; the blousy white shirts inspired by the fisherman of his home village; the ruffles, lunares and curving hemlines that evoked flamenco dancers.
Curator Hamish Bowles, Vogue's European editor at large, arranged the exhibition according to Spanish Art, Flamenco, Bullfighting, Spanish Court, Religous LIfe and Folk Dress. This installmanet was double the show that launched last year on the initiaition of Spain's Queen Sofía and imagined by Oscar de la Renta, who began his own career in fashion under Balenciaga's tutelage and invited Hamish onboard.
His arrangement isn't bad. But given the show's title, I was expecting a bit more. There was exactly one original painting that served to illustrate both the designer's penchant for modern art and how it shaped an abstraction in silhouette and shape, particularly in his last years, before he closed shop in 1968 (he died five years later at age 77). Balenciaga apparently thought he had little more to say. But it's obvious now that plenty were listening given his ideas predating the signature looks by Yves Saint Laurent, Halston and, fast forward, John Galliano, Viktor+Rolf and Tom Ford.
Balenciaga “remained forever a Spaniard…" Diana Vreeland observed once upon a time. "...the true son of a strong country filled with style, vibrant color, and a fine history."
'¡Olé!' Having just returned a couple weeks ago from Barcelona, which is less than six hours from the Basque fishing village of Getaria where the couturier's humble life began, I was moved by the references to both folk art and fine art. (I was also thrilled while in Barcelona to learn that my pal Manuel Outumuro had beautifully photographed the hefty catalog for the Balenciaga Museum in Getaria which opened last month. But more on our time with Manuel later...). Time and again, the designer found a tenor to draw from in the regional dress or dance of his native country, or a presence to riff of in the art of Velázquez or, later, Miró.
It was another Spanish painter, however, who Cecil Beaton's observation that Balenciaga was "fashion’s Picasso."
And, by the way, art's Picasso, that would be, Pablo himself, has plenty on view in a downstairs gallery at the de Young through October 9. More than 100 of the artist's works, many bonafide masterpieces and popular favorites, are on loan from the Musée National Picasso in Paris, thanks to a massive renovation there through next year.
Go. Even if you have seen the life-size bronze "Bathers" or the many portraits of wife Dora Maar or etchings such as "The Frugal Meal" (one of my long-time favorites), as Andy and I have seen before, it was no less exhilirating to see them again, live and up close.
Because whether it's the cuts in an etching or in a swath of organza, true artistry endures as fresh, stirring and powerful on the first encounter as it does the fifth or fiftieth.
(Thank you to my darling Andy for initiating the family field trip!)
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