Cameron Silver, owner of L.A.’s vintage couture mecca Decades, knows his way around an original Balenciaga. He had plenty to ogle at the opening of Balenciaga and Spain at San Francisco’s de Young Museum this week. Silver headed to the City by the Bay for the opening fête; read on for his report on the [...]

To put it one way, Cristobal Balenciaga’s first model was rather feline: “At age six, Balenciaga cut his first coat,” Vogue’s Hamish Bowles informed an intimate group at the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute in New York last night. “For his cat.” Not your typical first fitting, but a pivotal one nonetheless. “The cat kept [...]

Among the designers of the twentieth century, Cristobal Balenciaga is just about peerless. His friend Coco Chanel called him “the only couturier”; when he passed away in 1972, at the age of 77, Women’s Wear Daily declared, “The king is dead.”His work and legacy are now the subject of a new show at the Queen [...]

In the annals of fashion history, certain countries (France, Italy, England, the U.S.) get their fair share of credit, and deservedly so. But the contributions of Spain are lesser known, even though the work of Spanish designers has been some of the most influential in history—think of Cristobal Balenciaga or the Lanvin couturier Antonio del [...]

Jean Paul Gaultier is the latest designer rumored to be getting the Target treatment. First Rodarte, now the French…what’s next? Maybe a diffusion line of looks from Cristobal Balenciaga’s archives. Sure to have mass appeal. [WWD]
As if the abuse he’s been getting in the blogosphere hasn’t been enough, Kanye West has now been invited to [...]

Oscar de la Renta knows a thing or two about presentation. And I’m not just talking about the perfect pintucked cocktail blouse here. The designer, who’s in Barcelona to present the Mango Fashion Award to a designer today, was the guest of honor at a party hosted by the city’s mayor last night. Having trained [...]