Balenciaga - Brand and Visual Identity

RAINBOW-HUED Spring 2017 Balenciaga / first assignment / Casano Catherine Textile Design & Approval Process / Spring 2019 Debora Ferrara

the brand company s.p.a. Kering group nation France founder Cristobal Balenciaga foundation year 1919 original location headquarter San Sebastian, Spain current location Paris, France current owner Kering group Balenciaga is a luxury fashion house founded in Spain

by Cristobal Balenciaga, a designer born in the Basque Country, Spain.

Balenciaga had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as "the master of us all" by Christian Dior.

His bubble skirts and odd, feminine, yet "modernistic silhouettes" became the trademarks of the house.

balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba

creative directors

1919 to 1968 Cristóbal Balenciaga 1987 to 1992 Michel Goma 1992 to 1997 Josephus Thimister 1997 to 2012 Nicolas Ghesquière 2012 to 2015 Alexander Wang 2015 to present Demna Gvasalia

balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balenciaga balencia 1 2 3 ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balencia 4 balenciaga 5 6 ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba

market sectors

Women's ready-to-wear Men's ready-to-wear Handbags Shoes Accessories Eyewear Fragrance Kidswear

balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba

Brand philosophy

Each new collection of Gvasalia includes experimental wardrobe items that implement new, more daring ideas of the designer.

For such a short time, it was this approach that enabled Demna to attract the attention of fashion critics, and also to gain the reputation of one of the most daring designers.

Balenciaga created austere, sculpural garments that were precursors for the sack dress, cocoon coat and balloon skirts; Gvasalia has used these shapes to create a new aesthetic.

He has created anoraks that celebrate the cocoon silhouette while using shape as his muse.

balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba lenciaga balenciaga balenciaga balencia ga balenciaga balen ciaga balenciaga ba

balenciaga women ss2017

overview In SS 2017 Gvasalia played with the use of spandex, the synthetic stretch fabric that was invented by DuPont in 1958. Spandex takes intense color and print brilliantly, shrink-wraps the body, and, as he proved, can drape in a kinkily slinky, glamorous way. For many a year, stretch has been shunned in high fashion, except in the case of the dreaded athleisuBalre trend.

Safe to say, Balenciaga's use of spandex had nothing to do with sport.

The designer had discovered in the archive a big camel coat founder Cristobal Balenciaga had been making for himself. It became the springboard for his strong spring men's wear debut, which juxtaposed doorframe and beanpole silhouettes.

Perhaps the biggest point of difference between the young upstart and the Spanish master is their take on color.

Cristobal Balenciaga loved the color black.

Gvasalia has a thing for proportions, as Balenciaga, but unlike the Spanish couturier, Gvasalia sees his creations in vibrant, shocking, and at times blinding, colors.

Gvasalia's love of strange hues began with his first Balenciaga collection of bold primary colors, like the fire red of a knit or the rich cobalt of a parka. From there, royal purple and subdued pea green were added to his Spring 2017.

Those colors were so unforgettably bright, and so signature Balenciagaunder-Demna, that whenever they pop up elsewhere (and they have popped up with frequency), you can't help but trace the line of inspiration back to Gvasalia's runways.

basic colors Balenciaga loved the color black, and his preferred hue was repeated in the collections of all the designers after him, becoming an iconic color of the brand.

The color black relates to the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, and as a result it creates an air of mystery.

It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world.

In color psychology this color gives protection from external emotional stress.

The dirty beige , called jowl, is a neutral, calm, and relaxing color that appears in several nuances every season.

Gvasalia has offered up his own strong take on the shade with yellow undertones.

core colors These six saturated colors occupy the majority of the color palette in equal percentage.

Gvasalia's blue is on the more saturated side of the color spectrum, like a Caribbean ocean or bright Californian sky. it often associated with pink and violet.

The shocking pink, called Lautrec, in this collection is usually combined with the purple, in a spandex outfit.

A lively shade of purple, called Ninfea, has infiltrated both Gvasalia's men's and women's collections at Balenciaga, giving his twisted silhouettes a royal spin.

A rich spring green has been the through line between Gvasalia's collections, sometimes appearing with gray undertones, other times arriving in a hue as bright as a shamrock, such as in Spring 2017.

Bright, pure red, called Poppy, has appeared in every single collection Gvasalia has designed for Balenciaga.

He say bright red is the hardest color to ignore.

Orange is notoriously hard to wear, but that hasn't stopped Gvasalia from peppering his collections with neon tangerine. The designer tends to keep the orange to accessories, whether it's stocking boots or Spring 2017's Moroccan pouf tote bags.

NEUTRALS Shades of brown are mixed in the same outfit, sometimes more brown and others more red.

Brown is the color of earth, wood, stone and is a warm color that stimulates the appetite, it also represents steadfastness, simplicity, friendliness, dependability, and health.

Where Cristobal Balenciaga loved black, Gvasalia loves a pure optic white.

Consider it a nod to Balenciaga's Space Age silhouettes.

prints and patterns In SS2017 collection, it can be possible see three different kind of pattern: 1. floreal theme, in which green, orange, black and white are mixed.

In this theme the nature is the pattern's protagonist, through flowers and large leaves.

2. starred night theme, a black sky is full of stars.

The pattern all-over is repeated in two long elegant jumpsuit, enriched by jewels embellishment.

3. lines theme, lines are repeated vertically in different colors: like blue and red.

The pattern can be found on the shirts or as the earings' surface.

color palette

DEEP

POPPY

P: black

P: 485C

BRANCH

SOLE

P: 490C

P: 124C

JOWL

LAGOON

P: 7509U

P: 639C

OPTIC

LAUTREC

P: 663C

P: 701C

PEPPER

NINFEA

P: 7582C

P: 7656C