CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS: CRISTÓBAL BALENCIAGA MUSEUM PROJECT

The Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum and Central Saint Martins collaborated on an educational project involving students on BA Fashion Design Womenswear, BA Fashion Print and BA Fashion Communication on a study trip to discover the origins of Cristóbal Balenciaga and his decisive influence on couture. The project is based on the idea of tradition and folk roots as a source of new creativity. It is an universal theme, which transcends nationalities and cultures, and is precisely the theme of the museum’s “Coal and Velvet” temporary exhibition that students’ visited. In addition, the students had the opportunity to directly analyse some pieces of the museum archives related to this subject. This gallery shows the students development work and final design outcomes of the project, that were presented to the Museum in a fashion show within the studios as Central Saint Martins. The project is presented in its completion in a purpose built website : cristobalbalenciagamuseumxcsm.co

'Enchanted Cobijada: brings back your loved one in 7 days!'

'An elegant, graceful woman meets the working-class fisherman for a take on modern tailoring. Simplistic yet focusing on details and volume created on the body.'

'What would Balenciaga do if he came to the world today and saw what fashion has become? Maybe he'd perfect a lost silhouette, take advantage of the new fabrics? Or maybe he'd be so upset by what he saw that he would ditch fashion and try golf.'

'Juerga Controlada, the dance of wounded souls. Infection adorned her darkness.'

'A suit combining tailored outerwear elements in a lingerie silhouette, contrasting the public and private, an exploration of formality up front and fetish nature underneath.'

“Two years he walks the Earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the great white north. No longer to be poisoned by civilisation he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.”

'I began the project looking at architect and furniture designer Carlo Mollino. He used beautiful lines to create beautiful forms and to me, both Balenciaga and Mollino approach structure in a similar way. I recreated the feeling and mood of Mollino's lamp, simple but made beautiful with flowing line.'

'Cloud Atlas, the film, offers a dystopic future in which people use clones for their own desire and then throw them away. Inspired by this, my project presents the mass production of Balenciaga.'

'My Project was about the fusion between Peruvian and Spanish Cultural costumes after the conquistadors conquered the Incas. They created a hybrid intertwining each other’s history. I am inspired by Mario Testino’s book and exhibition Alta Moda, Bolivian female wrestlers and Peruvian packaging that reminds me of my childhood, when my older sister would bring me chocolates and Inca Kola as presents. It is very nostalgic and the first glimpse of Peru from my childhood. This was very much a project for my late father who was originally from Peru, and this is a message in a bottle for him.'

'When Balenciaga meets Miao. The inspiration of this loose dress coat’s silhouette, as well as the embroidered apron, is based on Miao nationality traditional costumes. The prints and embellishments come from a Miao tradition of butterfly patterns which represent the origin of universe. The velvet trimming embroidery which covers the big collar is inspired by Balenciaga design elements.'

'Regarding the institutional operation of power on the body through discourse and language. A cold, disciplinary instruction manual as to how to wear a tailored jacket, as well as how to "appropriately" live one's life in modern society, and what "real truth" is.'

I explored Balenciaga's Air France uniforms in contrast to images of bodybuilders, using this imagery to create structure away from the body with straight unsymmetrical cutting.

'Water is the earth's blood, wait for it to swallow us and be prepared to watch us evolve into a new generation of unearthly creatures.'

'To be nostalgic for something you never had, to explore your heritage, to explore another's heritage, to watch the blissful ignorance of a childhood dream dress itself.'

‘So I spread my skirt over you and covered the nakedness' says the Lord God, for this is a modern take on traditional Bavarian church costume with a focus on the round and feminine that pays homage to Balenciaga's dramatic silhouettes.'

“These are forms we are meant to inhabit in new ways, though never told how. We must invent, figure out. No explicit instructions. Maybe we, too, must physically fragment, scatter and reassemble in unexpected configurations of thinking and living. Or maybe the world in its turbulence has already pushed us this way." L. Woods, on Suprematism

'In my attempts to understand the anatomy of my childhood home and heritage, I have discovered lost photo albums dating back to 1903. Focusing on both my male and female ancestors, I am able to respond with a perspective of vulnerability.'

'Elegant but risqué.' 

'A pairing of the classic and the surreal in relation to the works of Cristobal Balenciaga and Salvador Dali' 

'Hey blue! After you land, can you cut a cake for me? I don't belong anywhere, when I go in and out it all depends on the air, it is about accidently blowing.'

'A tree of blood soaks the morning where the newborn woman groans. Her voice leaves glass in the wound and on the panes, a diagram of bone. Adam dreams in the fever of the clay of a child who comes galloping through the double pulse of his cheek. But a dark other Adam is dreaming of a neuter moon of seedless stone where the child of light will burn.'

'The Jealous bull. The bull had always envied the colourful clothes of the matador. So jealous, he used to rush to take the matador's clothes. I wanted to make such a garment, as fancy as a bullfighter’s one. In the end, the bull in the mask is smiling with satisfaction.' 

'My grandad was my muse for the project, enabling me to reflect on masculinity within my family. My nan is a strong woman and when visiting her at home I saw the impact of her feminine tastes on my grandad’s exterior self, like the collection of ceramic plates and floral furniture in the house. Referencing Cristobal Balenciaga’s avant-garde shapes within menswear to illustrate the influence of my nan on my grandad it became clear that placing the accentuated features of a woman on a man’s body in exaggerated places gave a peculiar impression. The final outcome takes classic menswear pieces like Oxford bags, a jacket and shirt and playfully distort the proportions as if my grandad had been re-sculpted by my nan in an attempt to achieve feminine excellence.'

'To Balenciaga, From Bilbao, With Love X The starting point was the symbolism and significance of a man lending a woman his jacket and marrying the masculine and feminine qualities in one tailored piece, similarly knitting the old and new of Balenciaga. By tying Balenciaga’s inspiration from Spain and matadors to my own experience of Bilbao, my illustrations of what I saw and overheard. An ode to a city of contradiction formed the basis of my surface design and print. From Bilbao, I sent a postcard home… That postcard is still yet to arrive; my project has been a tribute to that lost postcard.'

On Friday 24th March 2016 Fashion in Motion at the V&A presented 15 outfits of the outfits created by Central Saint Martin’s students inspired by the archives of the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, created for this project. Models paraded through the galleries in the garments, converging in the Museum’s imposing Raphael Gallery where visitors had the chance to see designs up close and speak to the students about the work.