Balenciaga

A Basque couturier's house that remade the female silhouette, went dark for eighteen years, then became the label everyone argued about.

Big name·Global·Founded 1917·Members

The Balenciaga logo, a trademark of Balenciaga. Shown to identify the house.

At a glance

Founded: 1917, as Eisa in San Sebastián, Spain, by the dating of Kering and the V&A; some accounts give 1919.⁴³²
Founded by: Cristóbal Balenciaga, a seamstress's son born in Getaria in the Basque Country in 1895.³
Home: Paris, where the couture house opened in 1937.⁴³
Owned by: Kering, whose Gucci Group took a controlling stake in 2001.²
What it sells: Couture and ready-to-wear for women and men, with accessories and fragrance.⁴¹
Size: Kering does not publish Balenciaga's sales; HSBC estimated about €1.76 billion for 2021.⁹

How it got here

1917

1 of 3

Cristóbal Balenciaga opens his first fashion house, Eisa, in San Sebastián, its name a shortening of his mother's maiden name.³

Victoria and Albert Museum: Introducing Cristóbal Balenciaga ↗

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Sources for what is above

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