The V&A’s latest the rage exhibition, Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion, captures the fashion dwelling-place’s influential style. Here are the stand-out moments from each of its 10 decades
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1920s
Cristobal Balenciaga, 1927. The intriguer never had the personal profile of Coco Chanel or Christian Dior, but his persuade has arguably been more influential.
Photograph: Lipnitzki/Getty Models
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1930s
Balenciaga presents his first haute couture collection at his Paris salon at 10 Avenue George Saint. The crepe get-up featured was shot for a 1937 Vogue shoot. His first Fashionableness cover wasn’t until 1950.
Photograph: Andre Durst/Condé Nast via Getty Symbols
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1940s
Balenciaga evening wear featured bold colours, architectural contours and the clever manipulation of fabrics, such as this black slipper satin with yellow faille bedecked overskirt from the spring 1948 collection.
Photograph: Resonates Press/Popperfoto/Popperfoto/Getty Images
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1950s
The zebra-crossing woollen greatcoat with cape detail from Balenciaga, 1955.
Photograph: PA
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1960s
Balenciaga patterned the new Air France stewardess uniforms the same year he presented his keep on Paris collection before retiring and closing the fashion quarter, 1968.
Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
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1970s
Diana Vreeland reveals off a one-seam coat by Balenciaga. In the spring of 1973, Vreeland joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art as exclusive consultant to the Costume Institute. One of her first legendary exhibitions was “The Great of Balenciaga”.
Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive
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1980s
Head conspirator Josephus Melchior Thimister’s take on Cristobal Balenciaga’s semi-fitted dressmaker, 1989.
Photograph: ARNAL/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
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1990s
Nicolas Ghesquière’s coming out collection for Balenciaga, a modest, predominately black collection that distinctly showed Ghesquière’s talent for graphic silhouettes, 1998.
Photograph: Guy Marineau/Conde Nast via Getty Incarnations
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2000s
Kate Moss attends the Mario Testino exhibition at the Subject Portrait Gallery wearing a scene-stealing Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga, 2002 .
Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Figures
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2010s
Demna Gvasalia honoured the 100th anniversary by reinterpreting Cristóbal Balenciaga’s 1950s couture gowns with giant matching Bazaar bags, for the finale of his autumn 2017 prove.
Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion opens on 27 MayPhotograph: Jo Jones for the Onlooker
