The Balenciaga Debt to Poiret

Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga has been incorrectly credited with designs & fashion innovations created by the French master 16 years his senior, Paul Poiret.

By sponsoring the recent Poiret exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, “Poiret: King of Fashion”, Balenciaga is paying back a lifelong design debt to the French master. "It's known in psychiatry circles that people who are bipolar see affinities where they don't exist,” exhibition co-curator, Harold Koda, recently told WWD. “I had my bipolar moment when I was looking at Myra Walker's Balenciaga exhibition in Dallas and I kept seeing Poiret."

Koda noted that both designers were enamored with a variety of the same silhouettes – cocoon coats, trousers, boots and dresses – and contends that it wasn’t Cristóbal Balenciaga but Poiret who was actually responsible for inventing the sackdress, the chemise and the sheath. And even today, Poiret continues to influence the house of Balenciaga through its creative director, Nicolas Ghesquière. "I will definitely be [influenced] and I'm sure I won't be the only one. You look at this incredible work he did. It's a real luxury to see the fabric. It was really fascinating to go through the collection.”

In total, the 50 looks on display cover the years 1905 to 1925, exploring the oriental influences on the designer and his artistic talent, collaborating with Georges Lepape, Raoul Dufy and Paul Iribe. "Poiret saw himself as more of an artist than a designer, and throughout his career, he positioned himself as an artist whose medium of expression was fashion, and he would often collaborate with artists," says Bolton. As one of the first to launch a line of fragrance – dubbed Rosine after his beloved daughter who was, in turn, named for his favorite bloom, the rose – he was also famed for his party-throwing skills. At the legendary “Thousand and Second Night” costume bash in 1911 for 300 people…who were turned away at the door or made to change into one of Poiret’s exotic costumes deemed in keeping with the Arabian Nights theme.

Sadly, though, for the giant size of his artistic legacy, he hit upon tough financial times, dying penniless in 1944, outshone by “it” designers of the day Chanel and Patou.