2024-01-18 21:00:00
Fashion history fans have two important television events in the coming weeks: the Spanish series “Balenciaga”, which premieres this Friday on Star+, and the American “The New Look”, regarding Christian Dior, starting on the 14th. February on Apple TV. Star+ also plans to soon announce the broadcast of “The Kaiser”, regarding the German couturier Karl Lagerfeld, which is in its final stage of production.
«Balenciaga» (six episodes) and «The New Look» (ten) offer a rare opportunity to compare two different television visions around the same era that convulsed European history, just before and following World War II.
Paris was the cultural capital of the world, and in particular of fashion. And a whole dazzling generation of couturiers walked through its salons and imposed their style: Coco Chanel, Jeanne Lanvin, Elsa Schiapparelli… and the Spanish Cristóbal Balenciaga, who arrived in the French capital from San Sebastián.
Balenciaga showed for the first time in Paris in 1937. The son of a fisherman and a seamstress, he was already a celebrity in his country of origin, where at the age of twelve he sewed a dress for the Marchioness of Casa Torres. Decades later, in 1960, he would design the wedding dress of his granddaughter, Queen Fabiola of Belgium. «Cristobal was the only true seamstress of all of us. The rest were nothing more than designers,” Chanel declared of her new competitor, to whom she was united by mutual admiration and rivalry.
Balenciaga was a legend of haute couture, but not only for his mastery of the needle, but also for his secrecy. There are hardly any photographs of him, he never waved at the closing of his shows and he barely granted a couple of journalistic interviews in his life.
One of them, to journalist Prudence Glyn (Gemma Whelan) from The Times newspaper, marks the start of the Star+ series.
The Spanish actor Alberto de Juan plays this complex character, who lived according to his own rules, always hiding his homosexuality, obsessed with control of his work, and without committing himself politically. “He had to navigate between waters and stay afloat,” explains Lourdes Iglesias, creator of the series, in a video conference.
The Nazis closed his workshop for three months, officially for “inciting rebellion through provocative hats.” Actually because he traveled to Spain to get fabrics to keep his business alive. But he didn’t mind designing for the wives and mistresses of German hierarchs.
“He didn’t close because he cared more regarding the workers, he didn’t want to leave them without food,” explains Lourdes Iglesias. Balenciaga broke the mold with its extra-wide collars, its sleeves cut at elbow height, its daring models from the 1950s, like the tonneau.
Adapt to ready-to-wear
Younger and with the instinct to adapt to ready-to-wear, Christian Dior caused a sensation following the war in 1947 with his “New Look” line, which marked a complete renewal of the fashion world following the terrible war.
The Apple TV series, shot in English, addresses not only the figure of Dior (Ben Mendelsohn), but the terrible fate of his sister Catherine (Maisie Williams, from “Game of Thrones”), arrested and deported to a concentration camp. by the Nazis for collaborating with the Resistance.
And Coco Chanel, once more, played by Juliette Binoche. A character that “deserves a separate series,” confesses Lourdes Iglesias, who in “Balenciaga” gave the role of the controversial designer to the French actress Anouk Grinberg.
Coco Chanel had an affair with a German spy, and even collaborated with the Nazis in a crazy attempt to sign a peace agreement with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, while Paris burned around her.
“He is one of the most fascinating characters there is, although he only liked to talk regarding men!” Iglesias explains with a smile.
© Agence France-Presse
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