Is there such a thing as an "intelligent ruffle"?

Cristóbal Balenciaga thought so.

"There are different kinds of ruffles. Some ruffles must be very, very elegant and light you know. You must make it become an intelligent ruffle. The flounce cannot look heavy; it should be soft and light. That is the way you make a ruffle."

See if this doesn't change the way you look at them.


(botanical of Narcissus major from the World Museum Liverpool; photo by Helmut Newton of Balenciaga gown for Vogue, 15 March 1968, © 1968 Condé Nast Publications, published in Balenciaga and His Legacy, Myra Walker, © 2006 The Meadows Museum)

New Ways to Wear Scarves for Spring: Knotting Balenciaga-style

A few months ago I was fortunate enough to find this vintage Balenciaga scarf for a shockingly low price (given his preeminent stature in fashion history). So it goes with so many vintage accessories: scarves bearing the names of great fashion houses sit around gathering dust while the (frankly less wearable) suits and dresses by the very same masters are snapped up by museums and wealthy collectors.


I don't get it, but that doesn't mean I don't profit by it. This scarf is particularly emblematic because it bears one of the hallmarks of Balenciaga's designs round about 1960--a fuschia pink bow, which appeared again and again as a flourish on his dresses and ballgowns. The bow dominates the cream ground, surrounded by a border of broken pink brushstrokes. (The design itself looks as if it might be by the hand of fashion illustrator René Gruau, who frequently collaborated with Balenciaga). The edges of the scarf are raw, which is typical of those from this house. Another point to note: Balenciaga scarves were sold only in his shops in Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris, and it's nice to think that at some point his own eyes might have glanced at this object.

I became slightly obsessed by the idea of wearing this scarf in a way that would accord with the designer's stringent eye. This meant combing the internet for images of late 50s/early 60s Balenciaga ensembles that included a scarf--and guess what, none did. I believe this is because during that period, a scarf, even of gorgeous heavy silk, fell more into the category of sportswear than city dress: worn to mainstay the coiffure on the beach or while horseback riding or driving along the coast in a convertible.

But then Myra Walker's wonderful book Balenciaga and his Legacy came to the rescue, with this photo of what I originally took to be a hat. But it's not, or not entirely--it's a low pillbox, more like a skullcap, that has been artfully trussed with a scarf of approximately the same vintage as mine.

I could do this, and you can too, given just such a molded hat and a beautiful silk scarf. Here's how:

1) halve the scarf into a triangle and set the broad end at the front of the cap.
2) loop the ends in back and knot several times
3) if the scarf has a signature that you'd like to show, foof around with the ends until it's on display as desired.

Of course you could leave out the cap and simply tie the scarf on your head without it, but if you want the sculptural quality that marked Balenciaga's work, do go for some armature underneath.



Cristóbal Balenciaga cocktail dress at top, 1958 (Photo courtesy of the Museum at FIT). Balenciaga hat, c. 1960, in Balenciaga and His Legacy, Myra Walker, 2006.

Who's a Sexy Nun, Then? Why the World Loves a Wimple

Not a lot of explaining necessary here . . .



Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, and most recently, in the December Paris Vogue, Lara Stone demonstrate how to work a wimple.

Call me crazy, but I think Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga is going for much the same effect from an entirely different direction, with his sleeveless hoodies for Spring 2010. Yes they're black leather rather than starched linen, and owe as much to the hood rat as they do to the lamb of God, but don't they make the wearer look alluringly untouchable--encased--in exactly the same sort of way?

Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story, Sophia Loren in White Sister, Lara Stone photographed by Cédric Buchet for December 2009 Vogue Paris.

Fashion Pedigree: Emanuel Ungaro

Have just learned that Emanuel Ungaro, a designer I long presumed to be a native Italian, was in fact born in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. Coming from this sun-drenched, lavender-scented, open-skied region of Europe, he found common cause with the Basque Cristóbal Balenciaga, with whom he apprenticed. Despite their provincial upbringings, the two went on to dominate the salons of Paris.

I believe it's possible to see in the early Ungaro traces of his master's sense of pattern and form. Take this suit, from the Parallèle line, which is far superior to the subsequent Ter and Emanuel diffusion labels that came later on.

The tailoring is exquisite, and I'm particularly taken with the bow detail on the back of the jacket. It's saucy, but in the most elegant possible way. Keep an eye out for early Ungaro if you also love brilliant tailoring. Many secondhand sellers don't know who taught him. Let's try to keep that amongst ourselves.

What's that About? The Sack Dress

All the recent writing about 1950s haute couture got me thinking about my very first exposure to this dramatic art form, which for better and worse has been indelible: Lucy and Ethel in their burlap-sack dresses and feed-bucket hats, thinking they were all that on the boulevards of Paris. "Jacques Marcel"--the designer they believed created the gowns (which were in fact the fine work of Ricky and Fred)--was fictitious, but he could have stood in for a number of French couturiers who were at the time experimenting with waistless dresses.

Cristóbal Balenciaga was among the first--both in relaxing the fit across the back (inspired by the original "sacques", loose-backed gowns that were ubiquitious in the 18th century), and in elongating the line of a suit jacket right down to tunic length.

Others followed suit with a more form-fitting, though still essentially waistless dress. Writer Anita Loos enthused in Vogue about its alluring mystique: "no gentleman is ever going to puzzle his brain about the form of a girl in a Bikini bathing suit."

Whether it's down to the antics of Lucy and Ethel, or due to the classic expression "she could look good in a potato sack" (excellently demonstrated at left by Marilyn), Americans have always had a wary relationship with the sack dress. I'd love to know if that extends to other nationalities as well; I'm fairly certain that menfolk the world over, despite the reassurances of vintage Vogue, would tacitly prefer the bikinis.

(Balenciaga coat, 1957, photographed by Seeberger, Bibliothèque nationale de France, in The Golden Age of Couture; silk damask sacque gown from Southcoast Historical Associates)

Anatomy of a Masterpiece III: The Headdress

For master couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, the hat was just that. His adornments for the head were as meticulously conceived and executed as the wraps around the rest of the body. Each of his hats, assembled on the premises of his atelier by Mme Janine or Hélène, was designed to complement a specific outfit, so that the entirety of the look became a mobile sculpture.

Among his most dramatic hats was this wingspan creation of 1948. (John Galliano liked it so much he paid homage in Dior's Fall 2009 Couture line.)



Less dramatic, indeed rather introspective, is the velvet beret Balenciaga used to top off the suit below, from 1950. Perhaps he felt its soft folds and rather frivolous tassel provided a necessary antidote to the strict lines of the suit underneath.


It's possible, too, that his own self-image as an artist of cloth was coming to the fore--this style of beret is less akin to those worn by Balenciaga's Basque countrymen as that worn by another quiet genius, Rembrandt, in numerous self-portraits painted in his chilly northern studio.



(photograph top: Clifford Coffin for American Vogue, 1 April 1948. Photo of Dior Couture Autumn 2009 by Monica Feuidi/Gorunway.com/Style.com. Balenciaga suit photograph: photographer unknown, for Vogue, 1950. Rembrandt self-portrait 1634, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)

Anatomy of a Masterpiece II: The World on his Shoulders

How lucky was the woman who saw this face, in this degree of concentration, for Cristóbal Balenciaga would not allow a client to leave his atelier until her gown, day dress or suit had reached his standard of perfection.

"Balenciaga was renowned in the trade for inspecting and resetting sleeves that were not perfect--even after the garment had been shown in a collection or was being worn by a client. He acquired these exacting standards during his training as a tailor in San Sebastian; travel guides of this period state appreciation for the skill of Spanish tailors--and the cheapness of their products in comparison with those of the French. (Lesley Ellis Miller, writing in The Golden Age of Couture).

Balenciaga's designs, like the suit at left, were far from cheap. This model from 1950 would have cost around 110,000 francs (a mind-boggling $35,000 at that year's exchange rate). What that bought in practical terms was a suit that fit a finger's breadth from the body, which afforded an immaculate line that did not constrain movement. In aesthetic terms it afforded, says Miller, less fashion than "a sense of eternity, of the reconciliation of past and present".

As a Balenciaga original is beyond the wildest dreams of most of us, what we can do is strive to take away from this master the notion of fit and how it ought to work.

Specifically, the fit of a garment at the shoulders, and from thence down the arm. I think it's safe to say that when fashion amateurs shop, they concentrate on how a garment sits at the three points of traditional measure (bust, waist, hips). If those conform in an approximate way, the garment is deemed "to fit."

Fashion professionals (and for these purposes I include in this group anybody who loves clothing enough to explore its making and history) know that fit begins at the shoulder. If a dress, jacket, or shirt doesn't sit right there, it may look just fine, but it will never be elegant, chic, soignée--all those words that define Parisian ladies looking amazing, seemingly without effort. Their secret? Their clothes fit their shoulders.



In these trendily padded days when Balmain and the like are sending scare-the-crows upper arms down the runway, shoulder fit can so easily go to hell in a handbasket--especially if one buys a knockoff. Be vigilant, even as you work a trend. Fabric should drop cleanly down from a shoulder, no matter how padded it is. No bunching, no wrinkled and sorry jowls below the set-in seam, no pinching around the underarm. Have another look at the eternally fashionable suit above. A shoulder should fit like that.

Anatomy of a Masterpiece: Cristóbal Balenciaga

Something a bit different: I'd like to spend the next few days discussing the suit above, a masterwork by Cristóbal Balenciaga. A quick note on the image itself: it's been attributed on the web as a shot for Vogue--whether American, British, or French is unclear. It looks like early Irving Penn, again an uncertain provenance. The suit almost certainly dates to 1950. I hope to provide more details over the course of the next few days.

In the meantime, today's focus is on the most extraordinary aspect of the silhouette: the wasp waist. This was achieved with disciplined corsetry and padding added to the lower portion of the jacket to emphasize the curve of the hips. The detail was originated by Christian Dior as part of his famed "New Look" of 1947. "I wanted to employ a different technique in fashioning my clothes," Dior said, ". . . I wanted them to be constructed like buildings."

Balenciaga adopted the silhouette and added a detail which is a subtle feat of tailoring: a front panel that effectively converted a single-breasted jacket from the waist up into a double-breasted one below.

Nicolas Ghesquiere, now fashion director at the house, took this silhouette as inspiration for his Spring/Summer '08 line, here modeled by Natalia Vodianova.

Will today's image-stricken women ever embrace a mode that emphasizes the curves of the hips? I very much hope so--minus the corset, of course--for what a voluptuous look this is.