flâneur

Founders: #315 Balenciaga

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What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:20) Among the masters of Parisian fashion, Balenciaga was the greatest. (3:00) Christian Dior called Balenciaga “the master of us all" and Coco Chanel said that Balenciaga was "the only couturier in the truest sense of the word. The others are simply fashion designers". (3:30) Jay Gould episodes #258 and #285 (5:00) For the next seventy-four years Balenciaga did a piece of sewing every day of his life. (5:20) Being prolific is underrated. — Paul Graham (Founders #314) (8:45) From the age of three to his mid-twenties he learned thoroughly every aspect of his trade. (17:00) Bernard Arnault (Founders #296) (23:00) What Dior told Boussac: What you need, and I would like to run, is a craftsman’s workshop, in which we would recruit the very best people in the trade, to reestablish in Paris a salon for the greatest luxury and the highest standards of workmanship. It will cost a great deal of money and entail much risk.” (26:00) Balenciaga never commented on other designers. (28:00) Balenciaga had a religiou

[00:00:00] Of all the creative people I've come across, Balenciaga was easily the most dedicated to the business of making beautiful things. His work absorbed him totally, and there was no room in his life for anything or anyone else. When the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s made it impossible, as he saw it, to produce work of the highest quality, he retired and quickly died of a broken heart. Among the masters of Parisian fashion, Balenciaga was the greatest. Indeed, many would rate him the most original and creative couturier in history. And he was a true couturier, not just a designer.…

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