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Cristóbal Balenciaga Quotes

7 quotes from Cristóbal Balenciaga — Spanish fashion designer who founded the Balenciaga fashion house..

“A couturier must be an architect for design, a sculptor for shape, a painter for color, a musician for harmony, and a philosopher for temperance.”

Design

“Elegance is elimination.”

Elegance

“The war years made Balenciaga into the great couturier he became. Closed off in his studio, which became a sort of laboratory, Balenciaga could work quietly and develop his craft. Until then he had been merely gifted, by the war's end he was unique.”

— Mary Blume, The Master of Us All

“Balenciaga alone is a couturier in the truest sense of the word. Only he is capable of cutting material, assembling a creation and sewing it by hand. The others are simply fashion designers.”

— Coco Chanel

“A couturier must be an architect of form, a sculptor for shape, a painter for color, a musician for harmony, and a philosopher for measure.”

— Cristóbal Balenciaga, as reported by biographers

“Haute couture is like an orchestra whose conductor is Balenciaga. We other couturiers are the musicians and we follow the direction he gives.”

— Christian Dior

“This is the house where couture for me is kind of innate, the essence. I felt it was my obligation. [Fear](/mental-models/fear) of not being enough. Fear of having to fill these very big shoes, left by 'the master of us all.'”

— Demna, on Cristóbal's legacy

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