Keywords

Human flourishing may be considered as the result of a creative process, for which setting goals, audacity, resilience, and consistency are required. When these capacities are put into practice, they transcend the improvement of the personal well-being to create an expansive mechanism that generates flourishing societies.

One of the clearest manifestations of a flourishing life is manifested in the positive impact one projects on society, in the sense of making other lives flourish (Hinchliffe, 2004; Diener et al., 2010; Seligman, 2011; Huppert & So, 2013; VanderWeele, 2017). There are many ways to positively influence improvement in the lives of others and, undoubtedly, there is a way to measure that impact. Two areas in which there are clear examples of this personal and external flourishing are the arts and education. Artists flourish in the exercise of their creative activity and contribute to the flourishing of other lives through the enjoyment of the beauty of their works or through the intellectual development that involves analyzing and understanding them. In the field of education, the influence of a good master on the intellectual and vital development of their students is unquestionable. In both fields, there are examples of artists and masters whose lives have flourished in the exercise of their crafts and who have contributed to the vital improvement of their contemporaries, in many cases creating schools of thought, and even to vital improvement of future generations through their legacy.

Cristóbal Balenciaga is a paradigm of a flourishing life in the fields of creation and education within fashion. Without going into the already extensive debate on whether fashion is an art or not, it is clear that it is a sector close to art since it implies a creative-innovative effort to produce original works and due to their eminently aesthetic nature. But it is also a business, as it is established for business ends; those of commercial success. Furthermore, in fashion, the final work is not destined to remain permanently, its nature is ephemeral. Precisely for the reasons of business profit inherent in it, it is called to be supplanted by other works in an endless cycle in which novelty is the supreme value (Lipovetsky, 2010, p. 114). The fashion designer has to concentrate on his clients forgetting his past creations and focusing on those of the present, working within the dynamic of the self-destruction of their own work. Balenciaga is an exception in this regard, since 50 years after his death, current generations of designers and experts continue to study with admiration the mystery of the timelessness of his legacy.

This article looks at the achievement of Balenciaga’s flourishing life as a personal improvement with respect to his point of departure, and his contribution to the flourishing of clients, workers, and even the fashion of future generations. To this end, this article is divided into three sections. The first is a short biography of Balenciaga to introduce him. The second focuses on the personal flourishing of the designer from the perspective of his work in fashion. Due to the dual aspect of the sector as art-business, previously referred to, this section is divided into two sub-sections: the first talks about the creative side and the second about the business side. The third section studies Balenciaga’s contribution to the social dimension through his concept of fashion and his legacy.

1 A Brief Biography of Balenciaga

Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre was born in Getaria, a small coastal town in the province of Guipúzcoa, on January 21, 1895. The youngest son of José Balenciaga, a fisherman and skipper of a small state-owned vessel, and Martina Eizaguirre Embil, a town seamstress. In one of the few interviews he ever gave, he himself stated that the Marchioness of Casa Torres, great-grandmother of Queen Fabiola of Belgium was the crucial influence that inspired him, at the tender age of 12, to dedicate his life to the craft of haute couture (Merlin-Teysserre, 1968, p. 57).

Balenciaga’s professional life has two distinct stages. The first, based in San Sebastián takes place between 1907 and 1936, the latter being a year marked by the outbreak of the Civil War in Spain, and the second, based in Paris from 1937 to 1968, the year of his farewell to the world of fashion. The first stage corresponds to his learning and professional development; from his incorporation as an apprentice in a tailor shop in San Sebastián, to the founding of his own company in 1917, in a context in which San Sebastián, a town near the French border, had become a cosmopolitan spa town, home to the summer holidays for the King and Queen of Spain. By the mid-1920s, the couturier had already managed to gather a prestigious Spanish clientele, including women of royalty (Arzalluz, 2010, p. 135). The establishment of the Second Republic in Spain in 1931 negatively affected the luxury sector in San Sebastián and, therefore, also damaged his business. In an attempt to diversify his clientele, in 1933 and 1935, respectively, he opened his headquarters in Madrid and Barcelona.

The Parisian period of the couturier started from the serious economic and social uncertainty caused by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July, 1936. With the financial help of Vladzio Zawrorowski d’Attainvill and Nicolás Bizcarrondo, Balenciaga was able to open his Paris headquarters and successfully present his first collection to the international press in August 1937 (Jouve & Demornex, 1989, p. 31). This unusually rapid achievement was not accidental: throughout the years of developing his clientele in Spain, the couturier had traveled periodically to Paris to see the collections of the main French couture houses, where he bought garments that his Spanish clientele might like, but he also purchased those that caught his attention due to their degree of innovation or the technical difficulty they entailed (Jouve & Demornex, 1989, pp. 23–31). He did it with the aim of analyzing and studying them in detail and also with the intention of making garments based on those samples of haute couture, introducing variations so that his clients could wear the latest Paris fashions at more affordable prices. Through this process, Balenciaga perfected his technique and began his own innovative process.

In this aspect, that of innovation, he stood out in the international fashion scene of the 1950s and 1960s and created the Balenciaga style, recognizable for its excellent technical qualities and an aesthetic language that aimed to enhance women. His merits were publicly recognized by his direct competitors. Christian Dior claimed “Balenciaga is the master of us all” (Miller, 2007, p. 7), and Coco Chanel, little given to flattery, referred to him as the “only one I admire” (Women’s Wear Daily 1963, 2 July). After having dressed the most select and elegant clientele in the world, the couturier announced, in the controversial month of May 1968, that he was going to cease his activity. He closed all his workshops in Paris and Spain, leaving only active his subsidiary Parfums Balenciaga, and he returned to establish his habitual residence in San Sebastián. In the Gipuzkoan capital, he collaborated with some friends in starting businesses in the ready to wear sector, which, at the time of his death in Valencia on March 24, 1972,—due to a heart attack—, were not prospering (Balda, 2020).

2 Personal Flourishing Through His Profession

2.1 Balenciaga, Couturier. A Marriage Between Technique and Cultural Heritage

In the mid-nineteenth century, Charles Frederick Worth laid the foundations for a new profession in Paris: that of a couturier (Cerrillo, 2019, pp. 55–79). In contrast to traditional dressmakers who sewed custom-made garments following the instructions of their clients, the couturier as envisioned by Worth developed the good taste and was responsible for proposing luxury novelties to clients, for dressing them exclusively and, at the same time, for working to the highest standards in terms of technique and the use of materials. Thus, the couturier had to be someone very knowledgeable in the technique of sewing and, at the same time, a creator of aesthetic novelties, which gave rise to unique garments. That is, in accordance with his standards, a couturier was comparable to an artist. Worth’s idea spawned the proliferation of luxury fashion houses, referred to as haute couture. The fashion press spread Worth’s concept of haute couture and publicized the names of those producing new creations in the field. At the time of Balenciaga’s birth, the concept of haute couture was ingrained and it was generally accepted that the most prestigious haute couture houses settled in the French capital.

Balenciaga chose the profession with a fairly clear idea of what it meant, judging by the account of his beginnings as told in his own words in an interview with the magazine Paris-Match after he retired:

My father was a fisherman, my mother a village seamstress. My luck was that a woman of nobility, the Marchioness de Casa Torres, who would go on to be the grandmother of the future Queen Fabiola, had her summer residence in this small town (Getaria) near San Sebastian. I only had eyes for her when she came to church on Sunday, getting off her tilbury, with her long dresses and lace parasol. One day, I gathered all my courage and asked if I could visit her wardrobe. Amused, she accepted. And so I spent wonderful months: every day after school, I worked with the Marchioness’ ironers on the top floor of the palace, caressed the lace, examined every fold, every point of all those masterpieces. I was 12 years old when the Marchioness authorized me to make an initial model for her. You can imagine my joy when, the following Sunday, this noble woman came to church wearing my dress. That’s how I made my first entry into Haute Couture and high society (Merlin-Teysserre, 1968, p. 57).

The testimony shows that, while still a child, his trade standards were high. He refers to what he saw in that wardrobe of the Marchioness as “masterpieces” from which he wanted to learn. The Marchioness was, in effect, a client of some of the prestigious French haute couture houses (Arzalluz, 2010, p. 61). Probably, his mother would have already instilled in him the beauty of quality sewing, even if it was a humble garment and, thanks to her and his benefactress, he would also have had access to fashion magazines with which he was able to expand his first knowledge about haute couture of prestige.

Once he was introduced to the dynamics of the profession, first as an apprentice in a tailor shop in San Sebastián, then in the fashion section of the Louvre Department Store branch in the city and, finally, as head of his own company, Balenciaga strove to emulate the technique of French couturiers. Back then this technique was not taught through formal training, so he decided to learn it with his own method: buying in reputed Parisian houses those designs that entailed technical difficulties that provided solutions still unknown to him. The couturier who introduced the most complex technical innovations in fashion in the 1920s was Madeleine Vionnet, who was considered “the most difficult to copy.” Balenciaga became a regular buyer of Vionnet and other prestigious Parisian houses (Jouve & Demornex, 1989, p. 23, 31). By 1925 he was already known in the Parisian haute couture circles (Andia, 1925, p. 2) and by the mid-1930s, Balenciaga had mastered the technique of the trade, thanks to his self-taught method and his tireless pursuit of matching his craft to the best. His command of technique is what allowed him to become one of the great innovators in fashion.

But innovation in fashion, the ability to create novel garments, in addition to technique, requires ideas that give rise to creations that visually, thanks to their shape and color, are aesthetically novel. Where did Balenciaga’s ideas come from? Considering that he had a long professional life, his ideas came from various sources. Among all of them, those that came from the traditional culture of his country of origin stand out. The couturier worked based on those sources, especially after settling in Paris, at a time when Spain was a particularly hot topic due to the civil war. The international fashion press were already echoing the Spanish influence in the chronicles of his first Parisian collection presented in August 1937. Coincidentally, three months earlier a new International Exhibition was inaugurated in the French capital, in which Spain wanted to be present despite the war. Picasso’s Guernica, which the Republican government had commissioned, was the main draw of the Spanish pavilion (Alix). In addition, popular costumes were exhibited along with photographs from “España Tipos y Trajes” by José Ortiz Echagüe (Ortiz-Echagüe & Montero, 2011, p. 404). At that time Pablo Picasso was a great representative of the French avant-garde. This circumstance had the effect of attracting to the exhibition personalities from broader artistic circles, among whom were representatives of fashion, such as Gabriele Chanel (Madsen, 1988, p. 252). It cannot be ruled out, therefore, to think that, as the French dressmaker did, other couturiers, including Balenciaga, would come to see the “Guernica” and also enjoy the aesthetics and diversity of the popular Spanish costume. Furthermore, during the months of June, July, and August 1939, an important exhibition of works from the Prado was held at the Museum of Art and Natural History in Geneva. These paintings, among which were paintings by Diego de Velázquez and Francisco de Goya, had been evacuated from the Prado Museum during the Spanish Civil War and were exhibited before their return to Madrid (Vivas, 2006). Subsequent references in the fashion press to the influence of Spanish aesthetics in some Parisian collections are also understood in the context of this large exhibition of the Prado paintings (Miller, 2017, p. 26).

It would be consistent to deduce that all these cultural events led Balenciaga to make the decision to cultivate the aesthetics of the Spanish tradition in his future Parisian collections because he was, among all the couturiers established in the French capital, one who could better interpret it as it formed part of his original visual imagery. In his autumn-winter 1939 collection, Balenciaga presented various dresses inspired by Velázquez’s portraits of the ladies of the Spanish court, which the fashion press dubbed the Infanta style. The couturier sold some adaptation licenses of this dress in the United States so they could be replicated in cheaper versions. The specialized press of the time echoed the success of this Balenciaga dress at the threshold of World War II (Women's Wear Daily 1939, 20 September). There are also two documentary pieces of evidence that confirm Balenciaga’s express intention to develop the aesthetics of traditional Spanish clothing. The first of these is his collection of historical clothing, in which some samples of popular Spanish clothing stand out. This compilation of garments did not have, in itself, a simple desire to collect, but was compiled by the couturier as a source of inspiration and work material. The second is the appearance of a copy of “El traje regional de España” among the work documentation of the couturier. It so happens that this book was also exhibited at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition (Alix, 1987, p. 169). This book, by Isabel de Palencia and published in 1926, is a compilation of texts, photographs, engravings and paintings of traditional costumes from the different Spanish regions, written with the intention of displaying the considerable wealth and diversity of traditional Spanish apparel (Palencia de, 1926, p. 9).

Fashion historians consider Balenciaga an innovator for having presented alternative proposals to the fitted Dior silhouette, which dominated the 1950s fashion world. Many of these new silhouettes were inspired by popular costumes. The Spanish cape, typical of men’s clothing, and the mantle of feminine attire, are especially present and reinterpreted in multiple variations in his collections from the 1940s and 1950s. Also present in these collections were the loose shirts worn by sailors and peasantry around his native Getaria. From these garments emerged the sailor blouse and jacket and the cocktail coats made of gathered yoke, dressed by the most elegant women on the international scene. This exploration by Balenciaga of folk costume not only demonstrates his expertise in interpreting the patterns and the ornamental richness of the costume, that is, his mastery of the trade, but also his ability to innovate and to do so from tradition, thereby disseminating his cultural heritage (Balda, 2019).

2.2 Balenciaga the Businessman. The Art of Converting Problems into Opportunities

Balenciaga triumphed on the international fashion scene in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. That success was built first by his mastery of the trade and subsequently by his innovative capacity. But fashion is not just art or skill; to succeed in this area also requires entrepreneurship. Unlike today’s fashion business models, where the creative and business responsibilities are often divided amongst different people, in the traditional high fashion business model of the Balenciaga era, especially in the run-up to World War II, the majority of responsibilities fell to the same person. The couturier was a creator and, although he had financial support or the help of third parties for the different non-creative tasks, he was also a manager, in the sense that he also had to make decisions of, among other things, a commercial, financial, or legal nature. If Balenciaga is studied from this point of view, it is discovered that he had to face a multitude of problems, many belonging to the fashion sector, but others of a totally different sort. By facing these problems, his company became one of the most successful in the industry.

The couturier opened his first fashion store in San Sebastián in 1917, in the middle of World War I when the city became the destination of an international and cosmopolitan population with a high degree of purchasing power that was fleeing the war (Unsain, 2016, pp. 216–217). Thanks to Spanish neutrality and the characteristics that had made it a favorite summer vacation spot for Spanish royalty, the city offered the possibility of a quiet, luxurious life, far from the rumblings of war. The increase in wealthy population further boosted economic activity around the luxury sector and was a propitious setting for the couturier to undertake his first business venture. He was 22 years old, but with his previous professional experiences he had acquired knowledge about the city’s clientele, about their tastes, and thanks to his trips to Paris as head of the women’s fashion section at the Au Louvre department store in San Sebastián, he would already have notions about the modes of operation of the city’s fashion sector. In the concept of haute couture devised by Worth, the houses that produced this type of fashion had to be centrally located, in the same area where his potential clientele resided. In addition, their salons, the rooms where clients were received, had to be decorated in the same luxury standard in which their houses were decorated (Cerrillo, 2019, p. 67). These requirements represented a significant initial financial outlay. In addition, he would have to hire the necessary personnel: cutters, dressmakers, embroiderers, ironers, models, etc...., prepare a suitable workspace for them and make an initial investment in the purchase of fabrics and all the materials necessary for the manufacture of garments that were successful with his target audience. He opened the business in Vergara 2, a central street in San Sebastián, but judging from the documentation that is preserved, his first investment must not have been enough, since in 1918 he associated with the Lizaso sisters, who were dressmakers, under the name Balenciaga y Compañía for a period of six years. While they contributed 60,000 pesetas in cash, he contributed stocks of materials valued at 7362.25 pesetas, which would come from his professional experience during the previous year. This documentation also states that the company would be dissolved in the event of the death of the couturier, which would not happen if one of his partners died.Footnote 1 All this information gives testimony to the role the couturier played as the pillar of the business and to his ability to obtain the financial resources that were not at his disposal. In 1924 he established himself as “Cristóbal Balenciaga. Couturier. San Sebastián” on Avenida de la Libertad 2, a location that improved on the previous one. In October 1925, El Pueblo Vasco, a local newspaper, even described the luxury atmosphere of this new House (Andia de, 1925, p. 2). So, it can be deduced that his association with the Lizaso dressmakers was profitable and that thanks to the profits obtained he was able to start his business alone, in what would be the definitive headquarters of his business in the capital of Gipuzkoa.

In the mid-1920s, the emerging middle-class bourgeoisie was replacing the aristocracy in San Sebastián (Unsain, 2016, p. 223). Moreover, the success that he had already achieved by this time gave rise to illicit copies of his designs (Arzalluz, 2010, p. 153). These factors are among the reasons that explain Balenciaga’s decision to expand and diversify his offerings. Thus, in 1927 he opened another business dedicated to dressmaking. It consisted of offering a series of designs with the possibility of being adapted to clients, or of being reproduced with fabrics less expensive than those available in his haute couture workshop. In this way, he managed to lower the final price of the garments and satisfy the demand of a new type of client, who, although she did not belong to the aristocracy, was well versed in fashion and held in high esteem the Balenciaga brand.

The couturier would subsequently go back to being bold on numerous occasions. The fall of the Spanish monarchy in 1931 did serious harm to the luxury business in San Sebastián and, therefore, also his own. Instead of closing the business, as others in town did, he decided to settle where he could increase his clientele, and open his headquarters in Madrid and Barcelona, in 1933 and 1935, respectively (Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, 2019, p. 38). The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 set another stage of great economic and social uncertainty in the country. It did not seem like an auspicious moment to invest in new locations, however, Balenciaga went forward: it was the moment chosen to open his Paris headquarters and make himself known in the international fashion market (Jouve & Demornex, 1989, p. 31). World War II and, especially, the German occupation of Paris in June 1940, opened another turbulent moment in the Parisian fashion sector where Balenciaga had already successfully presented several collections since August 1937, and it turned out to be another critical moment for his business. Nevertheless, the war years were for him a period of intense work and sales in the United States. Balenciaga opened this commercial avenue thanks to Spanish neutrality during the war, and he did it not only for himself, but also for other Spanish couturiers who needed to revive their businesses after the Spanish war, such as Pedro Rodríguez and Ferrer Artigas (Vogue, 1941, p. 15).

Despite the stiff competition that the appearance of the Christian Dior brand in 1947 represented for Balenciaga, the late 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s were years of undeniable success. In this period, what is known as the Balenciaga style was developed, characterized by loose lines that abstract the female waist. Balenciaga’s researches had an impact on the extent of his innovation and the technical and aesthetic excellence of his creations during this stage. But above all we must see in all this, Balenciaga’s entrepreneurial vision for offering a remarkable and a differentiate style in order to maintain and improve his share of the luxury fashion market.

These successes, intensely praised by the international press of the day, also gave rise to an international market for illegitimate copies that caused him significant damage. The Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture was in charge of organizing the Paris fashion shows since it was institutionalized in 1908 with the intention of making French haute couture known to the international press and buyers from prestigious fashion establishments. But the plan, according to which the fashion shows were held, gave rise to a breeding ground for illicit activities. An initial showing was held in the morning for the press, who were expressly forbidden to draw or to take photographs of the collections so that they could not immediately publish any graphic material that would generate the illicit production of copies. In the afternoon, another show was held for department store purchasing agents (Dior, 2007, pp. 114–115). Wholesalers and individual customers would see the collection in the following days. Representatives of department stores and wholesalers, unlike the others, had to pay a high fee for entering the fashion show. In the case of Balenciaga, the figure could reach the equivalent price of two evening dresses, generally the most expensive designs in a collection, but set at considerably higher prices, more than twice the usual price for private clients. It was a practice that the couturier used to avoid an excess of copies in the market, which could vulgarize his image and, consequently, harm the exclusivity for his final clients (Miller, 2017, p. 101). Despite the fact that the Chambre expressly prohibited the press from publishing information until four weeks after the shows were held, many fraudulent copies were made from sketches or photographs that were published in violation of the norm, immediately after these presentations, and it was even common for them to appear in store windows before the licensed copies. To deal with this problem, the couturier decided to dissociate himself from the official protocols stipulated by the Chambre and offer two passes separated in time: one for department store buyers, wholesalers, and private clients and the other, four weeks later, for the press. This guaranteed the exclusivity to his licensees for a month; the period necessary for the Balenciaga licensed copies to reach the points of sale (Balda, 2013, p. 422). This measure turned the press against the couturier, but served to protect his licensees and restore their confidence in his brand.

Balenciaga could have determined this problem was unsurmountable and decided, consequently, to retire. Let’s not forget that on this date he was already 61 years old, that he had been working since he was 12 and that in 1956 he was enjoying undeniable recognition. However, he tried to contain the damage and, thanks to the action taken, he was able to extend the life of his business for another 12 years, until 1968, the year he decided to retire. Fashion historians consider this farewell as the end of the most flourishing era of haute couture.

3 Balenciaga. His Social Contribution. Concept of Fashion and Legacy

With his creations, Balenciaga contributed to the enhancement of his clients and, consequently, contributed to their flourishing because it made them, in some way, happier. It was, indeed, the purpose of his fashion. His obsession with perfecting technique must be understood within the framework of this objective. In his mind, fashion did not consist of an exaltation of the body, but in an exaltation of the person, of the woman, hence, design should serve to enhance the virtues and hide the imperfections of the body, which was never perfect. Diana Vreeland, fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, contemporary with the couturier, captures that concept well in her memoirs: “(…) He believed totally in the dignity of women. Balenciaga often said that women did not have to be perfect or beautiful to wear his clothes. When they wore his clothes, they became beautiful” (Vreeland, 1997, p. 106). Hence, some of his innovations responded to his search to find technical solutions to enhance the body, which was always limited. However, his designs were not considered by specialists as revolutionary innovations, which changed drastically from season to season, as was the case with other renowned couturiers. His latest innovations were a progression from the novelties that he had introduced in the previous season (Chavane, 1950).

The testimony of his own dressmakers corroborates the idea of the concept that inspiredBalenciaga. “Many times, we performed surgery,” recalls Elena Aizpitarte, a seamstress at the Barcelona workshop, trying to explain that, on occasions, it was necessary to dress more difficult bodies, which required solutions that could be satisfied only with the knowledge and mastery of extraordinary sewing (interview with the author 2018, 12 October). The couturier himself took steps to insure that his teams learned and mastered all those techniques. Various testimonies from the workers at his shops in Spain and France confirm the couturier’s attention to these details because they learned how to produce garments of excellent craftsmanship. “If you showed interest, he would go to great lengths, he would show you all the secrets,” said Carmen Carriches, executor of the dress of Queen Fabiola of Belgium (interview with the author 2010, June 11). He also knew that some of these workers would start their own businesses in the future, and he made sure they would be thoroughly prepared. This is the case of Emmanuel Ungaro and André Courrèges, who started their own businesses once they had achieved and acquired sufficient experience (Emilas, 2017, 143–144). Thus the couturier created a fashion philosophy, he needed to share his knowledge and experience with those who were interested and knew they would perpetuate his craft into the future. Like good masters, he contributed to the flourishing of his disciples.

This mentality of enhancing women is not original to Balenciaga himself. The French haute couture tradition, to which the couturier was an heir, worked in this direction in the period before World War II. The prestigious specialized magazines emphasized the art of the couturiers, more than other issues, such as the beauty of the models. The fashion editors saw to it that the photographers and illustrators faithfully portrayed the Parisian creations from the point of view of their inner characteristics: degree of innovation, quality of the materials used, originality with the use of color, etc. Their art had to be subordinated to display the art of fashion creators. “Concentrate completely in showing the dress, light it for its purpose and if that can’t be done with art then art be damned,” was the maxim of Edna Woolman Chase, the first editor of Vogue, in her demands of illustrators and photographers in order to work for her magazine (Angeletti & Oliva, 2006, p. 84). This concept gradually changed throughout the 1950s and by the end of the 1960s, it was practically forgotten. The economic development of the United States and Europe had promoted a mass-produced fashion industry, inspired by the designs of Parisian haute couture, but at much more affordable prices, which satisfied the demand from middle-class women who also wanted to dress in fashion. Throughout these same decades the fashion press was already publishing articles with original photographs, never seen before in the sector, in which the art of photography supplanted that of the creators of fashion. In the same vein, the model’s physiques, their beauty and the idealized bodies that appeared in the magazines, were also supplanting the aesthetic qualities of the clothes they were wearing. Thus, prêt-à-porter was gaining relevance to the detriment of haute couture, and the concept of elegance, which had inspired couturiers like Balenciaga, disappeared. It was at this point that the couturier decided to retire. Haute couture had ceased to be a business, but not only that, fashion would no longer move along the coordinates of enhancing women, the coordinates in which he had worked since his beginnings in San Sebastián. So it is easy to understand that some of his clients cried when they found out about the closure of the House of Balenciaga; they felt that no one would dress them like him anymore (Vreeland, 1997, p. 107).

Balenciaga’s expertise was widely praised by clients, industry specialists and, as we have seen, even by his competitors. But contemporary design and conservation scholars continue to praise Balenciaga’s excellence and underscore the timelessness of his fashion. Herein lies the mystery of his legacy. His work developed patterns that have not been surpassed and which continue to be solutions, to this very day, to compensate for the body’s limitations and enhance its strengths, and has made him the creator of timeless fashion par excellence. Hence, the justification for Balenciaga’s entry into museums is also evident. Those most critical of the conception of fashion as art recognize that Balenciaga is the exception. His creations are, due to their aesthetic qualities, worthy museum pieces. However, his fashion is not simply a matter of good taste; above all, his legacy is mostly technical. Thanks to the donations that many of his clients have made to various museums, future generations of designers will continue to study Balenciaga creations as prototypes to transform imperfect bodies into elegant silhouettes.

4 Conclusion

The study of practical cases is one of the possible methods for investigating the influence of art and creation in human flourishing. The work should be carried out researching a statistically significant number of cases and following a common methodology to obtain valid conclusions that could be the basis of a consistent theoretical corpus, which would be helpful, above all, in the field of education. This article, focused on specific chapters of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s professional career, is an initial contribution to this avenue of research. It is a practical case, presented at the Human Flourishing Experts Meeting, which may already be complemented and contrasted with the case of Antonio Gaudí, presented at the same event by Josep Maria Tarragona. From everything that has been analyzed about Balenciaga from the point of view of human flourishing, at least four conclusions can be drawn.

The first one is the importance of setting goals and being bold enough to achieve them. The chapter on the prodigious copy, narrated by the couturier himself, is clairvoyant in this sense. Balenciaga’s childhood request of the Marchioness to copy one of her dresses reflects an unusual audacity, from which we can intuit a strong desire to know more and, probably, to be part of a world that, a priori, was inaccessible to him. That courage changed the course of a life, professionally linked to the sea, to a brilliant career in international fashion. From a perspective afforded by the passage of time, and with the evidences we have today on Balenciaga, the first lesson that can be extrapolated to other careers and lifes is that boldness is an essential attitude for personal flourishing. But there is a second one, which should not be overlooked. It is commonly considered that to achieve a fully enriched life, the vital context of one’s beginnings is decisive, as if one’s initial circumstances were to impede progress on the path of life in a definitive way. From this point of view, Balenciaga’s circumstances to dedicate himself to the world of haute couture were insurmountable: he was geographically and socially far from the fashion arena. However, his experience shows that the background (family, country, moment in history), while they may limit or make it more difficult to attain certain achievements, they do not make them impossible; a bold decision at the right time can eliminate barriers considered, a priori, as insurmountable (Csikszentmihaly, 1996, pp. 128–133). Subsequently, once he started in the profession in San Sebastián, he set another goal: to learn from the best and master their techniques. And for two decades, the 1920s and 1930s, he traveled to Paris regularly and worked intensely to achieve this mastery. The fact that he set himself this goal explains how he mastered the craft and is at the heart of his subsequent innovations.

The second thing we learn from his example is the necessity of resilience to achieve a fulfilling life. Balenciaga forged ahead with his creative task thanks to his persistence to not let himself be overcome by adversity. The outbreaks of the Civil War and World War II placed him in scenarios that were not exactly prone to developing a successful career in international fashion and they would have been justified occasions to abandon the profession, at least temporarily; he could have waited for the situation to improve. However, for him they became contexts to keep moving forward. This is a particularly interesting reading in light of current events. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the health and economy of a large part of the world’s population and, consequently, has canceled many projects that were underway. However, the case of Balenciaga serves to understand that persevering in one’s work, despite the economic limitations that appear on the horizon, can be fruitful and even profitable, once the storm has passed.

Thirdly, Balenciaga’s fashion, which sought proportion and balance, in short, beauty, was based on a fact, a fundamental truth; the limitations of the human body. This truth was the basis of his creative process and is at the origin of the consistency of his brand image. Being consistent with his concept and following his path in that direction, regardless of changes in tastes or market circumstances, also explain his success. For his customers, Balenciaga was a safe asset. It is a lesson that is applicable to the sphere of branding in the business aspect, but also applicable to that of branding from the point of view of one’s own personal brand in the broader context of fulfilling one’s lifelong project. The definition of objectives and the audacity to achieve them are not enough, if those objectives vary constantly, depending on the context, even to the point of contradicting each other, which only makes it more difficult to reach the ultimate goal of living a full life.

Finally, Balenciaga’s experience shows that the creative process with clear and coherent objectives expands to the point of forming its own philosophical following. A good creator automatically becomes a master, transcends his own creative process, seeks to make others participate in what he has learned, and sets in motion an expansive mechanism. Balenciaga and his disciples continue to create a school of style for those who want to learn. In much the same way, the individual process of seeking a full life does not end in the subject who carries it out, but rather, thanks to the social nature of man, expands to his family, work and friendships, in other words, contributes to the construction of a flourishing society (Table 1).

Table 1 Learnings and implications from Balenciaga as creator
Full size table