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Museum dedicated to fashion designer Balenciaga opens…
GETARIA, Spain — Queen Sofia of Spain on Tuesday inaugurated a museum dedicated to Spanish fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga , who revolutionized the world of haute couture.
Top fashion designers, including France’s Hubert de Givenchy and Spain’s Modesto Lomba, attended the inauguration in Getaria, a Basque fishing village of 2,700 residents where Balenciaga was born.
The museum will display more than 1,200 Balenciaga designs — the world’s largest collection — which will be shown in turn. An initial display of 90 costumes opens to visitors on Friday.
The exhibition will include dresses worn by Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Belgium’s former Queen Fabiola. The museum will also include a school of haute couture.
The opening of the $29 million museum was delayed by eight years, partly due to a corruption scandal related to its financing.
During his childhood in Getaria, Balenciaga learned to sew by watching his mother. His tailoring abilities were soon discovered by a countess on holiday in the area, who helped him enter the world of haute couture.
Balenciaga opened his first fashion house in the Basque city of San Sebastian in 1914. He later expanded to Madrid and Barcelona.
In 1937, the designer fled the Spanish civil war to Paris, where his sober and timelessly elegant style turned him into an almost immediate success.
Famed as an innovator of the female silhouette and in his creative use of fabrics, Balenciaga regarded his designs as works of art. Christian Dior called the Spaniard “the master of us all.”
Balenciaga did not become absorbed by Parisian social life, but “continued living like he had done in his home village,” his biographer Miran Arzalluz said. “He went to church, worked and spent the rest of the time with his family.”
Balenciaga died at age 77 in Javea, Spain.
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