The A–Z Guide to Balenciaga

Everything you need to know about the 100-year-old luxury fashion house famous for its cutting-edge silhouettes and cheeky sense of humor.

June 2016, Paris.The fashion world gathered for the designer Demna’s highly anticipated menswear debut for Balenciaga. Among the opening looks: a boxy brown blazer with exaggerated quarterback shoulders, a design that was allegedly left unfinished in the archives by the brand’s namesake founder, Cristóbal Balenciaga. Its completion symbolized the passing of the torch from one creative director to another nearly 50 years later.

In early March of 2025, parent company Kering announced that Demna would be leaving Balenciaga for a new role at the head of Gucci. His departure marked the end of an era. At Balenciaga, Demna celebrated the canon of the house while radically pursuing his own vision, not unlike Nicolas Ghesquière, who was creative director of the brand from 1997 to 2012. (Out of six creative directors throughout Balenciaga’s storied history, these three—Balenciaga, Ghesquière, and Demna—stand out as the most distinctive.) Known for his irreverent attitude, Demna’s bold, tongue-in-cheek approach saw him create magic—like transforming trash bags into totes—while stirring up more than his share of controversy. But his work raised important questions in the realm of design today, such as: What is luxury? And what is the point of fashion?These questions share an unexpected and surprising intergenerational kinship, rooted in boundary-pushing between the mononymous Georgian designer and the Spaniard who started the house in 1919. Following Demna’s first collection, the designer Raf Simons christened him “the most modern designer there is right now.” Whomever ends up replacing him at the brand will have enormous shoes to fill.Here is everything you need to know about Balenciaga, from A to Z.

Balenciaga’s client list has always been a who’s who of Hollywood. Through the twentieth century, fans of Cristóbal’s designs included Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, and Ava Gardner. Socialite Mona von Bismarck was said to have had a collection of Balenciaga garments strictly designed for tending her garden, while Texas oil heiress Claudia Heard de Osborne—who kept a suite at The Ritz in Paris for her couture wardrobe—requested to be buried in Balenciaga’s designs. And of course there’s Jackie Kennedy, whose shopping habit reportedly caused a rift between her and the president, who worried that most Americans would find her tastes too extravagant.Today, not much has changed. Demna’s front row sat everyone from Lindsay Lohan to Katy Perry, Bill Skarsgård to Kyle MacLachlan. The brand’s current ambassador list includes at least two Academy Award winners in Nicole Kidman and Michelle Yeoh.

Born in a small fishing village in the Basque region of Spain on January 21, 1895, Balenciaga was raised by his mother, a seamstress. By age six, Balenciaga was sewing coats for his cat, and by 12, he had quit school to work full time in her shop.

It was there that young Balenciaga was exposed to the wealthy women of Spain, including his future benefactor, Blanca Carrillo de Albornoz y Elío, the marchioness of Casa Torres, who would later send him to Biarritz to observe how the French dressed. That city would leave a lasting impression on Balenciaga, who became enthralled by the ease by which women wore clothes: their chic, flowing gowns would influence his idiosyncratic approach to dressmaking to the point that he would work directly with the fabric rather than start with sketches.

Balenciaga was a master of the silhouette, and his signature cocoon dress, which first emerged in 1947, saw the designer toy with shape via wide coats and jackets that broadened the shoulders while completely removing emphasis from the waist.A decade later, on the twentieth anniversary of the house, the designer debuted the iconic sack dress, which eliminated the wearer’s midsection entirely. The sack was radical, the antithesis to the nipped hourglass waists of Christian Dior’s New Look. In a short film recorded at the time, passersby gawk at a woman walking the streets of Paris in the voluminous silhouette. The declared: “It’s hard to be sexy in a sack!”

Innovation was at the forefront of Demna’s Balenciaga, evidenced by his signatures, such as the exaggerated hips of the Hourglass blazer or the frequent use of trompe l’oeil effects. Shoes and silhouettes have been blown up to Godzilla proportions with a devil-may-care attitude. Who else would wizard a car mat into a skirt? Or transform Crocs into a platform?After five years of ready-to-wear, Demna announced the return of couture to Balenciaga in 2021. Filtering his streetwear sensibilities through the strict rules of the hallowed practice, at a Balenciaga couture show, nothing was as it seemed. “Jeans” were actually canvas, painstakingly hand-painted over the course of two months, while an armored gown—fit for Joan of Arc—was 3D-printed before being cast in chrome. “It’s a true luxury for a creative person to have that,” the designer told . “It’s a platform where you can tap into things so when they don’t work out, you have time to try something else.”The closing look at the house’s fifty-third outing in July 2024 exemplifies Demna’s vision. A maelstrom of black nylon—47 meters of it, hand-wrapped around the model 30 minutes before the show started—was designed to be worn only once before unraveling. Couture in the truest sense.

Cristóbal opened his first fashion house in San Sebastián, Spain, in 1917. But before using his own name, he opted for Eisa, a shortened version of his mother’s maiden name Eisaguirre.

Preferring couture, Cristóbal only dipped into ready-to-wear once during his career. In 1968, before he retired, he was invited by Air France to design winter suits, following in the footsteps of Dior’s Marc Bohan, who created uniforms in 1962.Ever the perfectionist, Cristóbal insisted on individual fittings to avoid ill-fitting uniforms—creating 1,300 garments. The sleek aeronautical design featured a matching skirt suit with high-waist navy jackets, flat pockets, and logo-embroidered riding hats.In 1971, the designer created two additional looks—including a prim summer set in baby blue or pink, with a kimono-style crossover fastening, accessorised with a hatter’s bow and chic white gloves.

After Josephus Thimister’s unceremonious departure from the house in 1997, Ghesquière, who had joined Balenciaga just three years prior at the age of 22, suddenly found himself in the role of creative director.Once there, Ghesquière alchemised Cristóbal’s codes into modern and unexpectedly futuristic clothing. His collections would see him traverse from Darth Vader–esque visors (Spring/Summer 2012) to robotic gold leggings (Spring/Summer 2007) to spongy space-age neoprene sweatshirts (Spring/Summer 2012) to chunky Lego-like heels (Fall/Winter 2007).Then in 2012, following the designer’s Spring/Summer 2013 show—a sleek and sporty outing featuring bouclé tweed sets, crisscross bandeaus, and minimal Spanish ruffles—it was announced that Ghesquière would leave Balenciaga after 15 years.It was a shocking exit. Years later, the designer would reveal that he felt “alone” at the brand as it grew. “Over the last two or three years it became one frustration after another,” he shared in the cover story for the inaugural issue of . “It was really that lack of culture which bothered me in the end. The strongest pieces that we made for the catwalk got ignored by the business people.”

In May 1968, to the surprise of both his employees and the industry at large, Cristóbal announced the closure of Balenciaga. “High-fashion is mortally wounded,” he said, lamenting the difficulties of creating haute-couture and bemoaning that there was nobody left for him to dress. According to Diana Vreeland in her 1984 memoir D.V., von Bismarck locked herself in her villa in Capri for three days upon learning the news.Retiring to Altea, Spain, where he spent his days leisurely painting, Cristóbal would take on one final job: designing the wedding dress for Carmen Martínez-Bordiú, daughter of his longtime client Carmen Franco y Polo. The dress would be his swan song. Fifteen days after the wedding, Balenciaga died of a sudden heart attack.The house would remain closed from 1968 until it was bought by Jacques Konckier of the Jacques Bogart group in 1986, when it was relaunched with French designer Michel Goma at the helm.

Balenciaga’s iconic bag offerings include the sleek and angular Hourglass, the bold striped Bazar, and the croissant-like Le Cagole. None of those, however, had fashion fans in a chokehold quite like the City.A staple since its debut in 2001, the slouchy City is eye candy with its trailing tassels and distinctive hardware. Initially designed as a runway prototype, only 25 were made; the bag was gifted to friends like Emmanuelle Alt and Marie-Amélie Sauvé. But Kate Moss, who was frequently papped with the bag in the crook of her arm, popularized the City to the point that Balenciaga decided to put it into production.

At his Fall/Winter 2018 collection, Demna took the cocoon silhouette to the nth degree with elephantine outerwear that comprised no less than a flannel shirt, hoodie, trench coat, fleece, ski coat, and parka: jackets on jackets on jackets. The meme-y collectible, evoking ’s Joey Tribbiani in a stack of tees, can still be grabbed on Grailed today. If you’re willing to fork over $25K.

After quieter stints under the Jacques Bogart Group, Kering (formerly the Gucci Group) acquired a 91% stake in Balenciaga in July 2001. Joining Yves Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta in the luxury group’s portfolio, the brand was purchased in a spending spree alongside Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney.At the time, Balenciaga only had a single store in Paris. Within five years, however, the brand had quickly exceeded profit targets under Ghesquière. “We went from being a niche brand to now a future big brand,” he told in 2006. “The whole perception of the brand is changing. Balenciaga is starting to define a new kind of luxury house.”In a press release issued following Demna’s departure from the brand, the chairman and CEO of Kering François-Henri Pinault said, “Demna’s contribution to the industry, to Balenciaga, and to the Group’s success has been tremendous.”

On the day of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s death on March 23, 1972, declared: “The King Is Dead.”Dior called him “the master of us all,” while Gabrielle Chanel claimed he was the only true couturier. “The others,” she declared, “are just fashion designers.” Hubert de Givenchy, who trained under Cristóbal, claimed “not even the Bible” taught him as much as the Spanish legend, calling him “the architect of couture.” It was Vreeland, however, who perhaps summed him up best: “the greatest dressmaker who ever lived.”

Not to be confused with Lady Gaga’s legion of fans, Cristóbal referred to his models as his Monsters. Preferring shorter, plumper women who reminded him of his Spanish hometown, his in-house faces were usually older—just like his clients. Balenciaga’s models were instructed not to smile or make eye contact with attendees.“A woman has no need to be perfect or even beautiful to wear my dresses,” Cristóbal once said. “The dress will do that for her.”

In 1997, then-creative director Josephus Thimister, a former assistant to Karl Lagerfeld, presented what would become his final collection for Balenciaga after almost six years at the house. Amid body-enveloping gowns and polka dot cocoon dresses, the infamous Fall/Winter 1997 show had a teeth-shaking soundtrack courtesy of British electronic band Add N to (X), whose rendition of “Inevitable Fast Access” was so loud that the crowd exited en masse.“By the time the masterful simplicity of sumptuous gazar capes and draped ballgowns appeared on the catwalk, half the audience had left,” recalled Jane De Teliga in the Sydney Morning Herald. “Not driven away by the clothes, which in the long run were interesting if ugly, but by the most deafening music produced on a mixing desk right on stage.”It remains a secret if the Dutch designer was fired or quit after the poorly received outing.

Lesser known than Issey Miyake’s buoyant offering for Lithuania, the house of Balenciaga was invited to design the uniforms for Team France during Barcelona’s 1992 Summer Olympics. Created with French artist Frankie Tacque, the looks were composed of boxy white jackets for him and her, paired with navy trousers or a white pleated skirt. (Ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Demna released a collection of T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the Games’ signature flame.)

A true couturier, Cristóbal and the house of Balenciaga drew the attention of young designers keen to cut their teeth under a master. Some of the names you might recognize: Emanuel Ungaro, André Courrèges, and Paco Rabanne all went on to launch their own houses.Cristóbal’s most famous acolyte, however, never formally trained under him. But shortly after launching his own label, Givenchy became Balenciaga’s lifelong mentee. Informing both his aesthetic and business acumen, Givenchy spoke openly about his mentor’s formidable influence: “I was in awe of him,” the designer told System magazine in 2015. “I was fascinated by his meticulousness. He knew how to do everything—cut a dress, assemble it from a pattern. He allowed me to prove myself and to develop my own ideas and creativity.”After Balenciaga closed in 1968, Cristóbal convinced many of his clients to pursue patronage at Givenchy instead.

At the tender age of 12, the precocious designer made his first of many dresses for de Albornoz y Elío, whom his mother worked for as a seamstress. Why? “Because I think I can,” said the young Cristóbal. Impressing the marchioness, she soon began to fund his tailoring training in Madrid and continued to support him as his work flourished across Spain and Paris.Years later in a full-circle moment, as a gift for the late marchioness’ continued support—all the way up until her death in 1953—Cristóbal designed the wedding dress for her granddaughter Fabiola to King Baudouin of Belgium. One of the first royal weddings to be televised, the ceremony’s gown was a talking point in the press, with rumors swirling that Fabiola turned down three proposed designs for being too regal. The designer was said to have responded: “Please bear in mind that this is to be worn by a queen.”The look was made from ivory duchess satin lined in opulent white mink with a twenty-foot train. After being donated by Queen Fabiola to the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, it remains part of the permanent collection.

Shying away from the spotlight, Balenciaga famously never took a bow after presenting his collections and refused to talk to the press. And then, in 1971, he gave his only full interview to Prudence Glynn of . Revealing a peek into the couturier’s mind, she attributed his longtime reticence to “the absolute impossibility […] of explaining his métier to anyone.”

Only a singular talent like Ghesquière could garner a standing ovation before even presenting his collection—even if it was a cosmic accident. Kicking off the Spring/Summer 2012 shows at Paris Fashion Week, Ghesquière drew the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Salma Hayek, Carine Roitfeld, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Before the show would start, three of the plastic benches lining the catwalk snapped, sending its seated guests tumbling to the floor. Worried for their health and safety, staff asked all attendees to stand like a church congregation as the models began their procession.

For Balenciaga’s Spring/Summer 2022 show, Demna took the fashion industry on an unexpected trip to Springfield.As a longtime fan of the show, the creative director approached series creator Matt Groening in 2020, and secretly worked in collaboration for a year to produce the short film “The Simpsons | Balenciaga.” The featurette follows Marge to Paris and the Balenciaga atelier, and also featured catwalk appearances from Homer, Bart, and Lisa, as well as cameos from Demna, Justin Bieber, and Anna Wintour (who declined to voice herself).Coinciding with the first Paris Fashion Week post COVID restrictions being lifted, it remains one of fashion’s most unique presentations—representative of the idiosyncratic approach Demna is known for.

In March 2022, Demna presented Balenciaga’s Fall/Winter 2022 collection. Originally centered around climate change, the designer changed tack last minute following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a month prior. A deeply personal reflection of his own experiences of being a refugee—he fled his native Georgia during its civil war at the age of 12—the show began with a reading of Ukrainian poet Oleksandr Oles.Attendees watched a dedication to “fearlessness, resistance, and the victory of love and peace,” from outside a glass dome while models battled snow and high winds, clutching their clothing at the breast and hauling oversized bags (including trash bags made from leather). Among the looks, a jersey gown in bright blue was quickly followed by a yellow tracksuit set: an overt nod to the Ukrainian flag. Matching tees found on the guest’s seats were later sold, with proceeds going to the UN World Food Programme to support Ukrainian refugees.“In a time like this, fashion loses its relevancy,” reflected Demna in the show’s notes. Yet, this powerful response to the ongoing conflict was a reminder that fashion often functions as a mirror reflecting the world’s cultural and political events.

After fleeing the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Balenciaga transplanted from the Basque Country to Paris, opening an atelier at 10 Avenue George V. For the next three decades, the salon-cum-apartment was the location of the founder’s work and home life, and the backdrop for his collections. Drawing clients from Paris and beyond for fittings, his fanatics reportedly risked their lives to visit throughout World War II.

After closing Balenciaga’s doors in 1968, the space lay dormant until a renovation project began in 2020 to restore it to its former glory. Refitting the off-white stucco arabesques and intentionally fading the carpet and scratching the furniture, the makeover was unveiled at Demna’s first couture collection.

Following the departure of Ghesquière in November 2012, the search began for the house’s new creative director. With designers including Christopher Kane, Joseph Altuzarra, and Bouchra Jarrar rumored to be in the running, the search ended in December 2013, with the announcement that 28-year-old Alexander Wang would be taking the helm. “We wanted someone with global thinking, a citizen of the world, and someone who could understand the digital world and the direction of fashion and retail tomorrow,” former Balenciaga CEO Isabelle Guichot told regarding the appointment.Presenting his debut collection for Fall/Winter 2013, Wang’s initial outing drew inspiration from the archives, pairing svelte cigarette pants with fuzzy teddy bear intarsia knits that were made to look like marble and cocoon-shaped outerwear covered in layers of cracked paint. “It was a thoughtful, pragmatic collection that carried the promise of an intriguing new direction for the house,” Hamish Bowles wrote for . Throughout his tenure, the designer infused more of his sporty sensibilities with the house’s codes via structured sweatshirts (Pre-Fall 2014), crop tops (Spring/Summer 2014), fur-trimmed sunglasses and luxe shopping bags rendered in crocodile and fur (Fall/Winter 2014). Alongside dressing names like Rooney Mara, Carey Mulligan, and Julianne Moore for various Met Galas, he also introduced a brand new It Bag—the Le Dix—a minimal satchel worn on the arms of Rihanna and Lady Gaga.After two-and-a-half years, Wang and Balenciaga parted ways, leaving the house to focus on his own brand.

Demna’s distillation of Cristóbal’s codes sometimes saw him blow up recognizable motifs to gargantuan sizes, from square Frankenstein shoulders and behemoth bags to fat footwear. The puffed-up Triple-S sneaker (2017) made way for the hefty Track (2018) before ballooning into the superstacked Platform (2024) and clown-show-sized 10XL (2024).

At Demna’s Fall/Winter 2022 show, Kim Kardashian went viral for her caution tape catsuit. The outfit was fashioned from logo-printed yellow tape that covered every inch of her body and matching Hourglass bag. According to the Georgian designer, the look nodded to dress-up experiments he tried as a child, with a matching ready-to-wear version appearing on the runway.In a post on Instagram, Kardashian shared that the look took four Balenciaga design assistants half an hour to construct, and after squeaking and shuffling her way backstage post-show, she was carefully cut out of it, to preserve for her archive.

After blowing up sneakers to colossal sizes, Demna did a 180 for the brand’s latest divisive shoe. Unveiled at the end of 2024, the Zero dialed footwear features back to . . . well, zero. Doing away with laces, eyelets, and tongue, the minimal style simply comprises a slender 3D-printed sole, heel cup, and cover for your big toe—and that was it. A fitting, almost poetic footprint to cap a historic run.

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