Quest 4 Quality

Who killed quality - I want to know! The days when you really wanted to get something that was top shelf and you got it are gone. I mean it! They are GONE! No matter how much you fork out - you won't get the quality you're looking for. I've been a fashion designer on a regular basis three years now. And it's been time I've spent in search of top quality zips, buttons and fabrics. Most of my tries were in vain...

Cristóbal Balenciaga

Miss Kitty sings in one of her songs that Frank Sinatra is dead. Well, high quality is very similar to Frank Sinatra. It's dead...

Aren't those projects dating back to 1950's powerful? And shouldn't we be ashamed by the fact that Cristóbal Balenciaga didn't have all these fabulous devices we do and extraordinary facrics with prints, LED lights or whatever you may imagine and still he was able to reach pure perfection? And it's not that I'm just sentimental and I tend to make goo-goo eyes to vintage stuff. Again it's a question of one thing: QUALITY!

 One of Balenciaga's customer wrote about him a perfect epitaph:

"Women did not have to be perfect or even beautiful to wear his clothes. His clothes made them beautiful." 
 (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bale/hd_bale.htm)

 http://lapasserellemontreal.com/2011/03/22/balenciaga-itineraire-dun-visionnaire/

Vogue, September 1950
(photograph by Irving Penn)

Stella Oakes for Balenciaga, 1951
Photographer: Henry Clarke

 The way of thinking was completely different then. People wanted quality and they knew that quality required some costs and they gladly and eagerly paid for that. At the moment people are used to cheap as dirt clothes (I don't need to add what quality they are) and expect from me to design  and sew a silk dress for them for 80 Zl, while the fabric itself costs 400 Zl...

Let me teleport myself to better times... 

Or simply walk away...

Balenciaga Wedding Dress, 1967
Photographer: Tom Kublin Balenciaga Wedding

preferably in these shoes... ;)

Design by Pierre Hardy 4 Balenciaga

http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Balenciaga