“Cristóbal Balenciaga: Master of Tailoring”

CRITIC’S PICK: Cristóbal Balenciaga was the preeminent 20th century fashion designer whose craft was admired by contemporaries such as Hubert de Givenchy, Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain, and Christian Dior; the latter called him “the master of us all” and Chanel deemed him “the only couturier in the truest sense of the word.” The brand he founded more than 100 years ago remains an industry powerhouse to this day. Balenciaga mentored the likes of Oscar De La Renta and Paco Rabanne when they started out, and his clothes have been the subject of numerous exhibitions in prominent museums around the world.

Master of Tailoring “beckons viewers into the classical oasis of the Spanish couturier’s Parisian showroom to experience his habitude with hushed reverence, immersed in his chapel-like salon frequented by the Hollywood starlets and royalty who donned his creations,” SCAD says in its introduction. Curated with rarely seen archival pieces from the 1940s to the late 1960s, many making their U.S. debut, the show “affirms the prowess and breadth of the couturier’s work in an elegant display of his signature silhouettes with a touch of the unexpected.” — Kevin C. Madigan