2024-01-19 21:29:03
Is the Spaniard Cristóbal Balenciaga worthy of the elite Parisian haute couture? “No,” exclaims the capricious, sharp-tongued Coco Chanel (Anouk Grinberg), “he’s not just worthy of her, he’s better than her!”
The year is 1937. A time in which “Haute Couture” was not only a promise of craftsmanship, but also an aesthetic promise. Today, a handful of houses still produce the costumes and dresses in their couture lines according to the strict rules of the highest fashion genre; exclusively by hand, all unique pieces, created in a Paris studio with at least 15 employees. But today, compared to the past, even the most expensive designs seem clumsy and pretentious – especially with the marketing brand Balenciaga, which has now grown into a billion-dollar corporation.
Anyone who watches the biographical mini-series “Cristóbal Balenciaga” with not only an interested but also an experienced eye cannot avoid a bit of cultural pessimism: everything used to be better – at least in the area of haute couture, that high, highest art of tailoring that developed in 1895 Balenciaga, who was born in Getaria, Spain, was to devote around 30 years.
Always in the background: The couturier is described as a quiet observer and serious thinker.david herranz
Advertisement | Scroll to continue reading
This new Disney production is about his years in Paris: the control-addicted Balenciaga (Alberto San Juan) had already enjoyed great success in his homeland, but he arrived in the French capital at the end of the thirties as a virtual unknown. “Her designs lack personality,” a Vogue editor will comment on the couturier’s first collection – so the six-part series begins with a feverish search for one’s own style.
Suddenly France is interested in its farming neighbor
Cristóbal Balenciaga will find it in his own history, in his origins: Spain was sinking into civil war at the time and was therefore in vogue in Paris; a gallery in the city was showing Picasso’s “Guernica”; The otherwise self-centered country suddenly becomes interested in its poor farming neighbors.
So Balenciaga also takes on Spanish history and costume history, examining paintings by great masters such as Velázquez and Herrera, as well as Catholic icon images and priestly robes, always looking for small details and large gestures that he can translate into contemporary fashion.
Success comes fast and furious: Balenciaga soon becomes the brightest star in the firmament of haute couture – “the master of us all,” as even his competitor Christian Dior (Patrice Thibaud) will soon call him. But the Nazis quickly marched into Paris and imposed their dogmas on the flourishing fashion landscape; Balenciaga feels compelled to cater to the wishes and ideas of coarse German women.
The lovers are only granted a singular, hidden love scene
It is precisely the concrete historical episodes that could reconcile a wider audience with the Spanish miniseries: although it seems quite gourmet at the beginning, made only for viewers who are as fashion-savvy as possible, over the course of the six episodes it breaks into a historical drama rich in anecdotes – and into a personal story of suffering.
Unfortunately, there is hardly any real chemistry between the main actor San Juan and his counterpart Thomas Coumas, who plays Balenciaga’s hatter and life partner Wladzio D’Attainville; their joint play remains colorless. This may be due to the script, which only grants the lovers a single, rushed love scene, or to the series’ fundamentally sober narrative style.
Success makes you lonely: The miniseries is particularly strong when it touches on the personal story of suffering.david herranz
As a whole, however, the wonderfully pale images and almost stoic, quiet dialogues seem quite successful: too often, fashion stories are told as opulently as possible, as a single, final frenzy of shapes and colors. Only a few examples such as Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Silk Thread” (2017) with Daniel Day-Lewis allow the industry, which is trimmed for glamor and desire for favor, to also have more plain, real moments.
The life and work of Cristóbal Balenciaga can hardly be told any other way: the strict, quiet artist, known not for pomp but for pragmatism, for intelligence and sophistication, for rounded shoulders, lowered waists, for a virtuoso play with volumes and a Sense of craftsmanship. “He is the last real tailor,” Coco Chanel will say in the series – “the rest of us are just designers.”
4 out of 5 points
Cristobal Balenciaga. Miniseries, six episodes, from January 19th on Disney+
Good morning, Berlin Newsletter
Thank you for signing up.
You will receive a confirmation by email.
#Frances #King #Spaniard #streaming #criticism