In the latest designer vehicle from Disney+, a stylish biopic for Balenciaga obsessives, the late fashion legend is restricted by the show’s narrative and its unquestioning lens.
Everything comes back into fashion eventually, including fashion itself: After the House of Gucci movie in 2021, this year Apple TV+ launches The New Look, starring Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche as Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, and before that we have Disney+ tottering down the catwalk with Cristobal Balenciaga, a six-part Spanish-language homage to the venerable Spanish dressmaker.
A confession: When I think “Balenciaga” I think of twerps in hovercraft trainers or Instagram users overpaying for a word they can’t pronounce printed on a bucket hat. That said, the decline of a once-hallowed name into a brand is a part of the story here, as we go from the arrival of Balenciaga (a resolute Alberto San Juan) on the Paris scene in the 1930s to his struggles getting hold of fabrics during the war, the commercial challenge of pret-a-porter, competition from the New Look and so on.
Essentially his is a familiar tale of art being slowly poisoned by commerce. Branding, it turns out, is everything: Having fought to establish his identity (both in himself and in his work), the story is of how Balenciaga tried, and ultimately failed, to control it. Hence the daft $4000 trainers. Never at any point is Balenciaga’s genius as a designer questioned: Instead, the series is looking to showcase brilliance rather than cast aspersions, and when things go wrong for Maison Balenciaga it is almost always external forces that are to blame.
That said, over six hours plenty of time is given to explaining what he did and why it was special. In particular, his love of fabric (he was the son of a seamstress) and his understanding of how it interacts with and augments the body of the wearer were granted luxurious explication. Clothes on screen have rarely been presented with as much craft and devotion.
The question is whether any of this will be of interest to those who couldn’t give a toss about the meaning of the midi look, or who think haute couture is about as culturally significant as the price of caviar. As a story, the drama strives for the sophisticated simplicity of his designs but it dresses itself in a narrative straitjacket — the whole thing is told through the prism of a long interview with the fashion editor of the Times (played by Gemma Whelan), in which Balenciaga looks back over his life.
It’s a clunky, over-used structure at best and it brings a waft of Hallmark Channel to proceedings that sits at odds with the soignee subject matter. My suspicion is that viewers who aren’t that interested in the brand won’t be that interested in the man either.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Telegraph. Cristobal Balenciaga is available to watch in New Zealand on Disney+.
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