A FRENCH NEW STYLE : HORST, GRUAU AND ICONIC BALMAIN IMAGES

Rosamond Bernier: “It amused me so very much—Gertrude looking as she did, and then this glamorous creature, with a ruff, towering over and looking down at her. And Basket was right there. I thought the combination was quite wonderful.”

Susanna Brown: “Looking at this picture, there are these two women that are almost polar opposites. One, a woman in her 70s, huddled in her coat, sitting down low. Another who is an incredibly tall, young, confident, elegant figure. What’s interesting is that there's an uncropped version of this photograph, which isn't so frequently published, where we see two tiny little figures on the extreme right of the picture who are actually the illustrator, Eric and Rosamond Bernier from Vogue watching this photo shoot unfold from the wings, as it were.

After having spent the last three episodes discussing the creation and presentation of the first Balmain collection—as well as the larger-than-life personalities connected with that moment, this podcast start off by concentrating on one incredible, 75-year-old, black-and-white photo. Maira Kalman created a colorful retelling of that legendary image for her new edition of the “Autobiography of Alice B Toklas”—and we’ve placed that Kalman painting above.

Photo Credit: Maira Kalman painting of Gertrude Stein sitting in the Balmain showroom — from the new edition of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas. By Gertrude Stein and Illustrated by Maira Kalman Penguin Press New York 2020

Click on the links below for more information on Maira Kalman’s creations and to see the original, uncropped, Horst photograph of Gertrude Stein seated inside the Balmain showroom—now part of the official collection of the Horst Estate. The third button links to a recent Vogue article highlighting that image, as well as Stein’s original review of the Balmain show and a selection of Balmain images that have appeared in Vogue over the last 75 years.

Looking for more Horst information and images from his six-decade career? Click on the links below to visit the V&A’s introduction to Horst, as well as that same museum’s Horst Collection page. Further images and information can also be found by clicking on the link leading to the Horst Estate webpage.

To view some of the Horst images that Susanna Brown describes in this episode, including the Marcel Vertès-Lisa Fonssagrives shooting and two iconic photos from Horst’s second day of shooting Gertrude Stein for Vogue in 1946, click on the links below.
 

Pierre Balmain also turned to Gruau for some of his house’s first and most important campaigns.

From 1947 through 1965, Gruau oversaw the imagery used for the publicity of the house perfumes—beginning with an illustration of a reclining couture model speaking on the phone for Balmain’s first scent—ELY 64.83—which was cleverly named for the house’s first telephone exchange (and that same name was recently given to the Olivier Rousteing’s newest line of sleek leather accessories). Gruau also drew the windswept models in the ads for the Vent Vert scent—as well as the multiple beautiful images used the house’s best-selling scent, Jolie Madame—with Gruau concentrating on the couture creations of the house for that series, paintings a different collection’s design, for each new campaign.

To view some of Gruau’s many fashion images, click on some of the links below to view some recent French coverage of his distinctive art.

As Balmain explained in his memoirs, “Generally, they were only voluminous skirts that came down to the ankle, with matching jackets—but the buttons were of embossed silver and the linings in dove-colored taffeta. Gertrude always ordered deep pockets, in which she plunged her arms up to the elbows, in order to withdraw the paraphernalia of her everyday life. Both of them wore with distinction clothes that might have appeared ridiculous on anybody else.”

Pierre Balmain continued designing for the couple after they returned to a liberated Paris—and Stein was particularly proud to be wearing a Pierre Balmain creation when she sat in the front row of the young designer’s very first show, writing in Vogue, “I suppose there at the opening, we were the only ones who had been clothed all those long years in Pierre Balmain’s clothes, we were proud of it. It is nice to know the young man when he is just a young man and nobody knows, and now well I guess very soon now anybody will know. And we were so pleased and proud. Yes we were.”

As Susannah Brown notes, when Gertrude Stein posed for Horst during the legendary two-day Vogue photo session, Stein was wearing her very latest Balmain designs. Her brown-velvet ensemble had a slightly flowing skirt, a jacket and a hat with black tassels and sequins. It now forms a part of the fashion collection of the Victoria and Albert museum, and that Balmain outfit can also be seen clearly in some of the best-known Horst images from that famous Vogue session (click on links, below, to view).
 

Perhaps the most interesting parallel between the house’s very beginnings and Olivier Rousteing’s present, could be spotted in the very latest Balmain presentation, for the Men’s and Women’s Fall 2021 collections.

For, after a year of parallels between the challenges that Parisian fashion faced both post-war and during pandemic—Rousteing took the obvious next step.

As Rousteing made clear in his interviews with the press—now is the time to remember the joy that immediately followed Pierre Balmain’s first show.

As we all cross our fingers, optimistically hoping for soon-to-arrive better days, Olivier Rousteing found inspiration in Pierre Balmain’s excitement after his first show.

Because, as Rousteing told the press — 75 years ago, after the incredible triumph of his house’s first couture presentation, what did Pierre Balmain do?

He packed up his bags and started traveling.
 

He jetted off to America, not to talk about collections, but instead, following the directive of his friend Gertrude Stein, to act as a roving ambassador, crisscrossing the entire United States to deliver lectures on French culture and savoir-faire. He also jumped across the Channel, transporting his fresh new feminine take on couture to London, six years after the war had abruptly put an end to all imports of Parisian fashion. And, after an eight-day, multi-stop series of flights across half the globe, he touched down in Australia, bringing news of his house’s “New French Style” to Down Under.

Now, post-2020, it’s a whole lot easier for all of us to appreciate just how exciting and liberating those trips must have felt for Pierre Balmain.

After the anxious years of war and occupation, Balmain was suddenly being offered the long-denied possibility of escaping to destinations that he and everyone around him must have been dreaming about for years—and it must have felt incredible to be able to do it.

Olivier Rousteing’s video for Fall 2021 collection, filmed inside the impressive hangars of Air France at Charles de Gaulle airport, as well as his men’s and women’s collections, aim to channel that moment’s amazing sensations of freedom and liberty.

And, now as we all think about the joy and optimism that the young Pierre Balmain must have felt in late 1945—with the long war years finally over and his daring audacious gamble of his first collection having paid off—we also understand a little better that impressive power that travel offers us. It helps to open minds, uplift spirits and reunite those who have been kept apart—something that inspires all of us, as we look forward, together, to soon-to-arrive better days.