You don’t need to be a deep fashion enthusiast to know about Balenciaga. It’s one of the most popular high fashion houses the industry has ever seen. Its popularity is a product of its status as a beacon of craftsmanship and innovation that shows in its fashion items that many other brands draw from.
The foundation of the brand’s unwavering excellence is laid by its founder, Cristobal Balenciaga, who set the fashion house on a journey toward greatness that has lasted almost a century. It’ll be challenging to appreciate the brand without knowing its history, especially how it established itself as the epitome of sartorial excellence.
Hence, our objective for this post is to show you the history of Balenciaga, its brand image, and the age group it has become so popular with. We will also highlight some key features that set the brand apart from its counterparts in the industry. Let’s begin!
Balenciaga’s History and Brand Image Explained
The Early Days
So much went into making Balenciaga become the remarkable fashion house whose products we enjoy today. As we mentioned earlier, everything started with Cristobal Balenciaga, a brilliant designer whose ideas revolutionized the fashion world during and beyond his time.
Historical accounts noted that Balenciaga was very close to his mother, who worked as a seamstress to make ends meet for the family. Having observed her work for a lengthy period, he developed an interest in fashion and became an apprentice for a tailor in Gipuzkoa, Spain. Despite being a teenager, Balenciaga showed artistic flair that set him apart from others during his learning period.
His innate curiosity made him so engrossed with fashion, making him a prodigy who started having his clientele after a few years of learning. As a result, he became motivated and opened his fashion house in San Sebastian, Spain, in the late 1910s, naming it after his mother, Eisa.
It didn’t take long for him to become famous because he was a genius whose ability helped him transform mere fabrics into masterpieces that were beyond the norm then. As you may have guessed, his popularity led to expansion in Barcelona and Madrid, cut short due to the Spanish Civil War. This forced him to move to Paris – the world’s fashion capital.
The Fashion House
On moving to Paris, Balenciaga opened his fashion house and started creating a collection of dresses that attracted the attention of many. A while after World War II, his talent became widespread. His first collection of dresses became an instant success as people traveled through the risks of the time to see his designs.
This was a testament to the architectural precision in his dresses, which were beyond the standards of the time. After he established his designs as a staple in the industry, he moved from silhouette designs for hourglass-figured women to dresses suitable for others. From his fashion house, he continued to break farther from the norm.
His visions were audacious, and he made that evident in the designs of dresses he made. He influenced women’s fashion in the 60s by using different fabrics like vinyl. His designs slowly gained global popularity as his influence grew, becoming celebrities’ choices.
His philosophy was simple – create garments that featured clean lines, silhouettes, traditional craftsmanship, and precise sewing. This philosophy permeates all the dresses he designed and created. His signature colors for clothing, shoes, and bags were black, white, and gray.
It’s important to note that Balenciaga was a trendsetter rather than a follower. At a time when people started matching hats with their outfits, Balenciaga took the initiative and worked with Parisian hat designers Wladzio d’Attainville and Ramón Esparza. This partnership created couture pillbox hats that were popular in the 60s.
Retirement
Having worked for over 30 years, recording so much success along the way, Balenciaga decided to retire in 1968. This prompted him to close his stores in Paris, Madrid, and Barcelona, much to the disbelief of his clients. His decision responded to the shift in fashion trends at the time.
Fashion houses like Dior and Chanel were creating ready-to-wear dresses the fashion industry embraced. This significantly threatened his skills as he was purely devoted to couture. So, he closed up and passed away four years later. This was the death of an icon whose ideas and designs revolutionized women’s fashion for so many years and remained influential to date.
Newer Days
In 1986, the Balenciaga fashion house reopened under the creative direction of Nicolas Ghesquiere. He gave the fashion house a new lease of life, giving it a different design that showed his skill and the enduring legacy of the founder. He added to the excellence the brand was famous for, and his designs remained iconic even after his exit.
After exiting the fashion house, Alexander Wang took the reins as the brand’s creative director. Wang showed a solid commitment to honor the legacy of the brand’s founder through his first collection in February 2013. This brought a new dimension to the Balenciaga name and brand. They released youthful, edgy, and wearable yet eminently stylish designs before Wang left in 2015.
In 2015, under the ownership of Kering, Demna Gvasalia became the brand’s creative director. He brought fresh and youthful energy into the fashion house, and that informed the designs they released. It’s noteworthy that through the changes in creative directors, the brand’s excellence remained, and its clout is so loud in mainstream fashion and media.
Balenciaga is a brand that has been built up through the involvement of many people.
I agree. You can see how difficult it is to maintain a brand.
The Balenciaga Brand Image
The Balenciaga brand image has undergone so much transformation over the years. Balenciaga introduced the first image in 1917, a design that features a capitalized inscription of a light ‘BALENCIAGA’ under a bold emblem that is composed of two ‘B’ placed backward to each other and connected with three diagonal lines as bold as the ‘B.’ It was written in a light sans-serif font and remained the brand image until 2013.
In 2013, the brand image featured a redesign involving removing the bold ‘B’ emblem below the light ‘BALENCIAGA’ name. At this point, the ‘BALENCIAGA’ with a font close to Sweet Sans Medium was the brand image for another four years before it changed again.
In 2017, there was an adjustment to the ‘BALENCIAGA’ typeface to give it a more modern and relatable sight. While this has remained to date, the brand’s image has carried the same meaning ever since. Notably, it features the founder’s name, a Basque name particular to the Spanish region he was born in.
The translation of the name into Latin is ‘Baal rex est,’ meaning ‘Baal is King.’ This meaning represents the position Balenciaga took in the fashion industry. As we mentioned, the brand was a beacon many other brands followed to realize newer designs that defied the norm of its early days. Balenciaga even believed that certain fashion houses copied his designs.
Which Age Group is Balenciaga Popular With?
While a statistical analysis puts definite numbers to Balenciaga’s numbers, one doesn’t necessarily need it to justify the brand’s popularity worldwide. In other words, Balenciaga is a famous brand with or without what the stats say. However, determining the age group in which it is most popular gives insight into how many people buy its products.
To answer that, Gen-Zs is the generation the Balenciaga brand is most popular with in terms of brand awareness, loyalty, ownership, clouts, and media buzz. If you’re wondering who Gen-Zs are, imagine the age group born between the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The brand’s return to haute couture and various avant-garde collaborations under the current creative head, Demna Gvasalia, has helped the brand win over this age group. He leverages his understanding of what sets the trend on social media to boost the brand’s popularity and sales among the age group.
Over the last few years, his contributions have helped the brand edge Gucci, its fiercest competition, among the age group. Its collaborations with The Simpsons, Fortnite, and Kanye West have increased its sales and popularity. While this is a marketing strategy, it works for the brand.
For example, Fortnite is one of the most popular games among Gen-Zs. A significant percentage of the age group enjoys the gaming platform. Balenciaga’s collaboration with them offers these Gen-Z players the opportunity to get virtual outfits from the brand, among other fashion accessories. This increases the brand’s popularity and boosts the excitement of playing on the platform.
I’m surprised that it’s also popular with teenagers!
With the spread of social media, the number of people who aspire to it is increasing.
What Makes Balenciaga Unique Today?
Different factors drive Balenciaga’s uniqueness in a market saturated with different brands, products, and designs. Some of these factors include the following:
1. Excellent Creative Designs
It’s undeniable that most Balenciaga releases in recent times spark threads of talks and opinions on the internet. The brand is open to innovations, resulting in excellent creative designs people eventually love. Under all the creative directors, the brand never starved of creative designs, making it unique in the industry.
The brand’s commitment to innovation, resulting in excellent creative designs, continues a legacy created by its founder, Cristobal Balenciaga. During his years, he created designs that broke away from design norms at the time. So, it’s no surprise that the brand has retained such an element in its production today.
2. Quality Craftsmanship
Quality craftsmanship is a factor that distinguishes a luxury brand from a regular brand. For Balenciaga, from its earlier days till the present, it has ensured that every production undergoes meticulous attention to detail. No feature of their products is random or a mistake because the best artisans carefully create them.
Balenciaga doesn’t negotiate the addition of quality craftsmanship in its production process. For them, it’s an essential ingredient that influences the outcome of their product and its reception by its target market. This is why when you hold any Balenciaga product, you can tell the brand made it carefully.
3. Customer Centricity
Balenciaga has retained its uniqueness by creating products that meet customers’ needs and preferences. While that may sound cliche, the profound nature of it is evident in the age group the brand is most popular with. Understanding Gen-Z’s market and demand strongly drives some of Balenciaga’s production.
That’s why the brand cannot afford to produce items that don’t factor in the interest of its most popular consumers. So, the brand’s ability to center each production on customers’ demands has made it unique in the fashion industry.
4. Authenticity
During its early days, Balenciaga attracted the interest of many people worldwide because of its authentic designs. At the time, some of the brand’s creations were never seen before, as the founder spearheaded the creations. Indeed, the Parisian designer Balenciaga bought and dissected their dresses to understand how their creative patterns influenced his art, but he didn’t copy them.
This element has persisted through the years as the brand continued to take giant strides in the industry. The brand retains a strong sense of authenticity with an undivided focus on creating products that show the brand’s identity, vision, and values. This enhances the brand’s uniqueness in the industry, filled with numerous similar designs.
Balenciaga certainly has a very cool image!
Although it has a luxurious feel, it is also stylish because it is easy to wear at any age and is simple.
What Are the Most Popular Products from Balenciaga?
Balenciaga produces different fashion items, from luxury handbags to shoes and clothes. Some of the most popular Balenciaga handbags include the following:
- City Bag
- Hourglass Handle Bag
- Ville Bag
- Balenciaga Bazar Shopper S Tote Bag
- Sharp XS Satchel
- Vanity XS Round Bag
- Ghost Shoulder Bag
Some of the most popular Balenciaga Shoes Include:
- Balenciaga Triple S Sneakers
- Balenciaga Runner Trainer
- Balenciaga Track 2
- Balenciaga Defender
- Balenciaga Speed
- Balenciaga Track
Some of the most popular Balenciaga Clothing include:
- Balenciaga BB Mode T-Shirt
- Balenciaga Printed Cotton-Jersey T-Shirt (black)
- Balenciaga T-Shirt
- Balenciaga Speedhunter Oversize Printed Cotton-Jersey T-Shirt
Bottom Line
A conversation about Balenciaga’s history is incomplete without noting its founder’s impact. The enduring legacy of the man extended by the brand’s creative directors over the years has attracted the interest of a new age group – Gen-Zs. With a commitment to embracing modernity and creating products beyond non-conventional expressions, Balenciaga stands a good chance of retaining the interest of this age group in the future.
