A very important part of the Victoria and Albert Museum's mission is
design , materials and making.
It's part of the curator's responsibility to research the objects in the collection.
In order to understand certain aspects of Balenciaga's work
we decided to invite people who had the expertise and the skills
to become involved with the project. At the London College of Fashion
the MA students have a collaborative unit – by looking at these garments with them
we would be able to understand how Balenciaga produced these amazing shapes and these amazing garments.
What we're asking you to do is to discover all the secrets of these garments
these are all works of art and they're museum objects – we want them to yield up all their secrets
but we also don't want to damage them.
One of the first features that the students picked up on was the asymmetry – that they weren't making a symmetrical commercial pattern.
This garment is made for a special client: this arm-hole is bigger than this one.
Also, the left breast is smaller to fit this client specifically.
So a signature for Balenciaga is a silhouette which looks very simple on the outside
but actually involves layers of cut, so something which appears to be loose will have a very fitted
internal which actually supports the drape.
When the students looked at the pieces they realised that they had to put aside their assumptions
about how something should be made – and they were very surprised to see
very irregular seam allowances, the way that certain pieces were finished, rough stitching – things like that
forced them to appreciate the making in a different way.
It's been really exciting to look at the garments created by Balenciaga
with people who are makers. It's revealed details that perhaps we wouldn't have noticed ourselves. Often they were following
in his footsteps, so where draping was the process that he used they were using draping on a stand, and not cutting a flat pattern
When you extracted the pattern from the garment
as a pattern cutter it was
unusual to be presented with a pattern which didn't look like it should work
And obviously we knew that it did because we'd seen gone it came from – and we then reproduced that garment again.
Balenciaga didn't have the attitude that something couldn't be done
I think the students liked the challenge of taking something that was couture and being able to interpret that using their digital pattern cutting
and re-realise the pieces but using some contemporary technology.
Through this process
we got to know what the signature features of a Balenciaga design are
and in general, we discovered that he never takes the easy solution. He's always striving to get the exact effect he wants.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the project has been
the transition from the start when the students entered the archive
feeling a little bit overwhelmed, and then during the course of the project they were the experts being consulted by the curators.
Even though this neckline is quite large, having this fastening isn't actually very functional
But it is if you have a very elaborate hair-do! And the armhole shape
the angle of this is absolutely crucial because there's hardly any seam allowance here
and the whole swing of the garment can be altered.
So this is just one big piece of fabric wrapping all the way around from the front to the back
so we've got no side seam running down here
which is a really unusual feature of this dress.
The project with the students at the London College of Fashion had revealed what makes Balenciaga's designs so unique
I think what we all came away with was reverence and respect for the craftsmanship and skill in his work.