The Experience of Luxury

Haute Couture can be considered, from its origins, the maximum expression of a luxurious and specifically feminine experience.   

A world of exclusiveness and exquisiteness around the creations designed by the couturiers and made with artisan methods, the etiquette governing the purchasing process and the social contexts in which creations and female customers are exhibited. 

The customers of Haute Couture, members of an elite, attach great importance to the clothing they wear during their numerous social interactions, an external symbol of their personality, status and lifestyle. For them, Haute Couture Firms are exclusive clubs that display the social success of each of them. 

Cristóbal Balenciaga”s timeless style, with a slow and calculated progress, is always several years ahead of the existing fashion, standing out with imperceptible details generating confidence, comfort, elegance and beauty.  His customers feel identified with the firm”s doctrine: “Being well dressed does not consist in the length of a woman’s skirt nor in the height of her waistline. It is not as simple as that. A woman has first to discover her personality and dress in harmony with it.  The role of the couturier is to create something that flatters this personality.  Elegance exists in every woman – it’s only a question of bringing it out“. Cristóbal Balenciaga LADIES HOME JOURNAL- september 1956. 

This is the luxury provided by Cristóbal Balenciaga and that is the experience that this exhibition seeks to glimpse from the perspective of its protagonists, the customers, but without forgetting those who generate it within the maison.