Pierre Balmain, founder of the Balmain Paris house and master of the movement’s architecture
“Architecture of the Movement” was the expression that Pierre Balmain liked to use to refer to the art of tailoring. This is how the career of this designer known for her elegance began.
Pierre Balmain was in fact part of the fashion world as a child, because his father owned a tailor shop and his mother a fashion boutique.
As you can suspect from the name, we speak of a Frenchman: Pierre was born on May 18, 1914 in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. In 1933 he studied architecture at the School of Fine Arts, but he also worked as a freelance designer.
The first real employment comes thanks to the designer Edward Molyneux, for whom Balmain works for five years.
Pierre opened his atelier in 1945. Initially his forte are the bell-shaped skirts with a narrow waist, very popular after World War II. The first collection is even sponsored by Vogue.
International promotion began between the Forties and the Fifties: Balmain became known in Australia and wore the Queen of Thailand Sirikit for the US tour.
It was in those years that his fashion house shaped stylists like Karl Lagerfeld, who would later become an icon of the international fashion system and that he would always be referred to by just mentioning his beginnings.
A winning partnership between two big haute couture who have produced, together and distinctly, many of the most exclusive collections.
