Zurich, 1970. The Exhibition Balenciaga: Ein Meister der Haute Couture

Abstract

This article takes a new look at Balenciaga: Ein Meister der Haute Couture, the exhibition held at the Museum Bellerive in Zurich from May 31 to August 16, 1970. By exploring the materials preserved in the museum’s archives (now at the Zurich University of the Arts), the study sets out to reconstruct this retrospective dedicated to Cristóbal Balenciaga and to consider its relevance to the museology of the Spanish creator. Examining these archival materials provides an extraordinary opportunity to reflect on the history of fashion exhibitions, on the genealogy of these three-dimensional artifacts and on the practice and discipline of fashion curating. How do we decide whom and what to show? How do we construct a museum collection that represents fashion? To address these questions, this article analyzes not only the exhibition project, but also and above all the decision-making processes that preceded and shaped this exhibition in particular. Balenciaga: Ein Meister der Haute Couture was an exhibition produced in an institutional dimension which saw a close connection between the museum and the school of applied arts. At the root of this project lay the intentions of a school of fashion design: this allows us to think about the relationship between the design of fashion and the languages used in exhibitions of and for fashion.

Keywords:

• Cristóbal Balenciaga
• fashion curating
• fashion exhibitions
• fashion museology
• Museum Bellerive

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Archive of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), and particularly Julia Flieg for her warm welcome and generous assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 An important reference is the project that Judith Clark carried out between 2018 and 2019 at the invitation of the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa in Getaria: “Judith Clark was invited to respond to the museum’s new curatorial route through the galleries with a new installation. Creating references to recent exhibitions dedicated to Balenciaga’s work, the exhibition becomes a repository for museology as well as dress history”: https://judithclarkcostume.com/exhibitions/cristobal-balenciaga-fashion-and-heritage-conversations/. Accessed August 20, 2020. The discovery in the Zurich University of the Arts archives of the folding map made by Clark on the occasion of the project Cristóbal Balenciaga. Fashion and Heritage—Conversations is particularly significant. This folding map clearly explains the themes and iconographic references she utilized to construct these museological conversations. See: de Lorenzo (2020).

2 When not otherwise indicated, the letters and documents cited in this article are in the Zurich University of the Arts / Archive (ZHdK Archive). Many of the documents present in the archives are in German and have been translated into English for this essay.

3 The School of Applied Arts connected with the Kunstgewerbemuseum would later become the University of Design and Art (Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich, HGKZ), before merging with the Zurich University of the Arts (Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, ZHdK).

4 Verena Bischofberger, Vorgeschichte der Austellung Cristóbal Balenciaga, June 10, 1970.

5 In general, looking at chronologies of events related to Balenciaga and his fashion house, when it comes to the date of the exhibition in Zurich, the first retrospective devoted to the work of the still living couturier, great importance is assigned to Gustav Zumsteg in the promotion and organization of the project. See: Balenciaga (2011); Miller (2017).

6 It should be noted that some important pieces requested by Bischofberger were not initially acquired owing to a reduction in the funds available, but Bischofberger was later to “find” them in the exhibition as loans.

7 Initially, during this visit, Billeter proposed putting the models on display in the spaces on the upper floor of the museum, perhaps not immediately realizing the project’s potential.

8 Letters from Billeter to Buchmann, February 4, March 26 and April 9, 1970.

9 Around 45,000 Swiss francs instead of the 10,000 initially allocated. In today’s money that would be around 190–200,000 euros.

10 Letters from Billeter to Buchmann, February 4, March 26 and April 9, 1970.

11 The exhibition Fashion: An Anthology by Cecil Beaton in 1971 that sprang from this desire is considered a crucial moment for the systematic entry of contemporary fashion into museums in London. See: Clark and de la Haye (2014).

12 The note was made at the same time as the summary of the events leading up to the exhibition, also drawn up by Bischofberger.

13 The Miedingers were from Zurich and, furthermore, they were both former students at the city’s Kunstgewerbeschule.

14 “The World of” is in capital letters and obviously placed above the name BALENCIAGA, whereas “Ein Meister der Haute Couture” is in upper and lower case and located underneath.

15 In this sense, the subtitle of the exhibition is revealing, with Balenciaga described as a “master” of haute couture.

16 Letter from Billeter to Buchmann, February 4, 1970.

17 Letter from Billeter to Madame Renée Tamisier, director of the Maison Balenciaga, thanking her for the welcome she had received at the atelier in Paris and for the loans made to the exhibition, April 1, 1970. Billeter had written to Balenciaga on January 16, 1970, to ask for these additional loans.

18 While the number of pieces acquired by Bischofberger and the characteristics of these objects certainly made it necessary to borrow further items, at the same time the vision of someone who could understand them in structural terms, and not just from an exclusively formal perspective, should not be disregarded. In the collection of the Museum of Design in Zurich there is an iconic piece of Balenciaga, the black wide-winged cocktail dress, model no. 128 of the fall/winter 1967 collection, with its unmistakable form of an inverted cone. Looking carefully at the list of the acquisitions overseen by Bischofberger in early 1969, it seems that this piece was part of the group. It is a highly representative garment because it is a structurally complex piece and yet apparently very simple, made of gazar, the extraordinary fabric invented by Zumsteg in collaboration with Balenciaga. But it was sold in very small numbers because it was difficult to wear. This dress was shown in 1970, demonstrating to us today that a garment which is interesting from an “educational” viewpoint can be utilized for an exhibition that (also, but not only) aspired to be spectacular. Not coincidentally, Hiro’s famous 1967 photograph of Alberta Tiburzi wearing this dress was on the cover of Lesley Ellis Miller’s book (2017; also, see pages 72–73).

19 “Haute Couture im Museum.” 1970. Textiles Suisses, no. 3, September 11.

20 “Architecte pour les plans, sculpteur pour la forme, peintre pour la couleur, musicien pour l’harmonie et philosophe pour la mesure” are the words that Billeter uses to describe Balenciaga in the aforementioned article, with regard to the qualities that a couturier ought to possess. In reality they are Balenciaga’s words, used by Zumsteg in his portrait of the couturier that appeared in the March 1968 issue of Vogue Paris. Also see Miller (2017, 50). It has been interesting to find in the archives this typewritten text signed by Zumsteg, which Billeter seems have appropriated.

21 Hubert de Givenchy wrote to Billeter after visiting the exhibition and found it excellent in the way it had captured the atmospheres that define Balenciaga, complimenting her in particular on the choice of showing Tom Kublin’s films. Letter from Givenchy to Billeter, June 9, 1970.

22 See the recent interview with Tom Kublin’s daughter Maria (Pountney 2010).

23 The film Die Goldene Stühle (10 minutes) is on one of the collections of 1965; the film Haute Couture (18 minutes) presents the couture of Yves Saint Laurent and the hairstyling of Alexandre de Paris as well as Balenciaga’s work. Even though the second film does not focus exclusively on Balenciaga, it is extremely valuable because it is the one that shows him at work. Billeter does not seem to have grasped its documentary value, since she suggested the possibility of acquiring it principally for the fashion course. However the Museum Bellerive acquired and showed both films.

24 Two films—also made by Kublin—that were added to the materials requested from the Studio Kublin came directly from the fashion house in Paris, each on three reels, relating to the collections of 1962 and 1966.

25 “The Clothes and the Lenders,” in The World of Balenciaga (1973, 66–77).

26 The coat was sent directly to the Met by Ramon Esparza.

27 In this letter Blum underlines the fact that over 150,000 people visited the exhibition on Balenciaga.

28 See https://www.diariovasco.com/20070824/san-sebastian/inelegancia-salon-elegancia-20070824.html. Accessed August 13, 2020.

29 Balenciaga was born in Getaria in 1895, and he set up in San Sebastián his first fashion house in 1917, which remained opened until 1968. See: Arzalluz (2011), Miller (2017).

30 The recent exhibition Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion curated by Cassie Davies-Strodder (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, May 27, 2017–February 18, 2018) has tried to “stage” a collaboration between school and museum in a very interesting manner: the museum invited students of the MA Pattern and Garment Technology course at the London College of Fashion to analyze Balenciaga’s construction processes. They traced patterns from the original garments that were then digitized and improved so that they could be used to make calico toiles, displayed in the exhibition alongside Balenciaga’s pieces. A way of drawing attention to the couturier’s extraordinary technical skill, as well as making visible the language of design proper to fashion. See https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/learning-from-the-master. Accessed August 17, 2020.

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Notes on contributors

Gabriele Monti

Gabriele Monti, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at IUAV University of Venice, Italy. Among his research interests are theories of fashion design, fashion curating and visual culture, fashion and celebrity culture. He was associate curator of the exhibitions Diana Vreeland After Diana Vreeland (2012) and Bellissima: Italy and High Fashion 1945–1968 (2014–16). He published a book devoted to Italian fashion models, In posa. Modelle italiane dagli anni cinquanta a oggi (Marsilio, 2016). His last project: the book and the exhibition Italiana. Italy Through the Lens of Fashion 1971–2001 (Milano, Palazzo Reale, February-May 2018 – Marsilio, 2018). [email protected]