Balenciaga Shaping Fashion

Exhibition dedicated to the work and legacy of Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, focusing on his most celebrated period — the 1950s and 60s, widely considered the golden age of couture — the exhibition traced how Balenciaga championed a new kind of elegance, one that liberated women from the defined waist of Dior's New Look in favour of architectural volume and freedom of movement. More than 100 garments and hats were on display, alongside archive sketches, fabric samples, patterns and catwalk footage, offering an unusually intimate view into his salons and workrooms. Among the highlights were his most revolutionary silhouettes — the baby-doll dress, the controversial sack dress, and the envelope dress he produced shortly before his 1968 retirement. The exhibition also pushed beyond the archival with a series of forensic investigations into the clothes themselves. In collaboration with X-ray artist Nick Veasey, the museum produced scans of individual garments to reveal their internal construction — including the hidden weights Balenciaga used to ensure a dress fell precisely as he intended. Students from the London College of Fashion worked alongside the museum to reconstruct the patterns of displayed pieces, placing replica toiles beside the originals to illuminate his working methods.