The Great Fashion Designers (48 page)

In recent years, McQueen has increasingly retreated from the fashion circuit, rarely staying long at parties, preferring his own company or that of a close-knit circle of friends. In an interview with British
Harper's Bazaar
in 2007, he acknowledged his preference for outsider status. ‘I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don't want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.' He remains an obsessive about his work, determined to make an enduring mark: ‘I'm interested in designing for posterity … There are only a handful of designers that influence other designers, and I have to keep one step ahead of the game. As a designer, you've always got to push yourself forward; you've always got to keep up with the trends or make your own trends. That's what I do.'

Further reading:
Alexander McQueen still awaits a biographer, but there have been plenty of perceptive interviews, particularly in the British press, where writers have followed his career from the early days. McQueen features in Susannah Frankel's
Visionaries
(2001) and has been interviewed by Frankel on several occasions. Other interviews include ‘The New Kingdom of Alexander McQueen' by Nick Compton for
iD
(August 2002) and ‘Killer McQueen' by Harriet Quick for
Vogue
(UK, October 2002).
Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity and Deathliness
(2003), by Caroline Evans, makes many interesting observations about his work.

The youngest designer in this book, Nicolas Ghesquière was barely noticed when he first arrived at the ailing house of Balenciaga in 1997. Perhaps more by luck than by design, the owners of Balenciaga had discovered a designer with a genuine admiration for the late couturier and sharing his same exacting standards. Ghesquière was also a child of the 1980s, looking resolutely forwards. Over several seasons, he developed a confident signature of his own that referenced the glorious past of Balenciaga but also hurtled it forward into a new century as one of the most influential labels in fashion. Commenting on his autumn/winter 2008 collection, Suzy Menkes, fashion editor of
The International Herald Tribune
, wrote: ‘The makeover of Balenciaga is exceptional because of the seamless flow of past and present, often uniting in a single outfit.'

Ghesquière is every bit the modern designer: full of inspired creative ideas but seeing no inconsistency with the concept of building a brand and driving forward a business. The fusion between creativity and commerce, noted by fashion historian Nancy Troy in her study of early twentieth century couturiers such as Paul Poiret, is complete. Applauding his spring 2007 collection, fashion editor Cathy Horyn of
The New York Times
wrote: ‘If he isn't the most important designer of his generation, it's hard to think who would be. Certainly, Mr Ghesquière is one of a handful of young visionaries trying to look at the future of fashion in a believable way.' Balenciaga under Ghesquière produces ready-to-wear rather than couture, but the young designer saw a new middle way for high fashion, merging craft and couture touches with high-tech materials and street inspiration. For ready-to-wear, he works with Lesage for embroideries and Lemarie for feathered work, both specialist names associated with couture. ‘I don't think couture fits our world,' he said in 2007. ‘[But] anyway I have the luxury of using the couture techniques in my ready-to-wear.'

Unlike Balenciaga, who draped fabric directly, Ghesquière prefers to sketch. ‘I have my ideas in drawing form on a board, along with the fabric, and then I try to find the shape and silhouette, and work through each idea to build the show collection.' His team then brings the ideas to life. In common with Balenciaga, he has an obsession with precise cut and with perfecting every piece. ‘There is no compromise,” he told
Women's Wear Daily
. ‘If we have to try 20 times [to perfect] a dress, I try it 20 times.' Discipline and a perfectionist sensibility drive him forward. The process of editing is also important, he has said. ‘Fashion is about selection, editing. You have to be very severe in your selection, so you keep something to yourself—even in the way you present yourself.' This sense of severity was also tempered with a dose of mischief-making: for his spring/summer 2004 collection, he chose to show no trousers on the runway, puzzling fashion editors by excluding the garment for which he was then most admired.

His influence on the broader fashion market is immense. Ghesquière has a futuristic touch, creating a kind of sci-fi fashion that excites his customers. He is also gloriously unpredictable, making the shows at the crowded Balenciaga showroom in Paris among every season's hot tickets. When he revived floral prints for his spring/summer 2008 collection, buyers and press alike decreed florals
as one of the key trends for that summer. His signature looks of slim-line trousers, shrunken jackets and soft handbags have been widely admired and copied. His trousers made young women drool in the early noughties. James Aguiar of Bergdorf Goodman told
Vogue
in 2001: ‘What Ghesquière has done is to give a young girl the thing she wants most: to look cool and hip. And he cuts the sexiest trousers for women.'

Ghesquière is the son of a Belgian golf-course owner and a French mother. Born in Comines in the north of France in 1971, he spent most of his childhood in the provincial French village of Lou-dun in western France. The young Ghesquière was an enthusiast for sports, including riding, fencing and swimming—he still swims regularly in the Ritz swimming pool in Paris. At the tender age of twelve he said he wanted to be a fashion designer, sketching dresses in his school books and creating dresses from curtains. Internships as a schoolboy at Agnès B and Corinne Cobson gave him a taste of the fashion industry. School over, he assisted at Jean Paul Gaultier for two years, an important period during which Ghesquière said he learned ‘an aesthetic of mixing'. He then moved to design knitwear at Pôles, followed by a series of freelance design jobs, including Callaghan in Italy. At Balenciaga, he began by working for the Asian licensee, designing the unpromising categories of uniforms and funeral clothes. By the mid-1990s, the house of Balenciaga was a shadow of its former self: the great perfectionist couturier had closed the business in 1968 and its revival as a serious fashion house was considered unlikely.

Ghesquière was appointed head of design at Balenciaga in 1997 at the age of twenty-five, replacing Josephus Thimister, a move that barely raised a ripple of interest in the media. Balenciaga owners Groupe Jacques Bogart had recognised the young man's talent when he produced a promising small collection for a Japanese licensee. ‘When I arrived at Balenciaga, it was full of ghosts—good ghosts and bad ghosts,' Ghesquière has recalled. ‘Some people didn't speak to me … Maybe they thought I would just do something disrespectful, or try to re-do things right away. And, of course, that was not my intention.' His first few collections attracted little buzz in Paris and Ghesquière was hampered by the fact that he had no access to the Balenciaga archives, relying instead on books and Irving Penn's photographs. Even so, by 2001 the word was beginning to circulate that Ghesquière was someone special, and the designer was profiled at length in American
Vogue
. His interest in vintage and in the ‘unbeautiful' was noted by
Vogue
writer Sally Singer. From the beginning, Ghesquière had also been exploring new volumes, reacting to years of slim silhouettes. Blousons of linked circles and apron tunics that spiralled in strips around the body were highlights of his first collection. Then came fleece batwing tops with tight cuffs, followed by leggings, referring back to the 1980s. For spring 2001, he decorated jersey cocktail dresses with touches of lace, ruffles and pearls.

Inez van Lamsweerde, the Dutch photographer, pointed out that the designer's starting points ‘are things that come from a collective memory. There are certain elements you remember from your childhood—something you saw, something you wore—and these can trigger a string of associations. The way a jacket is closed, for instance, can make you recall music. Nicolas takes a cue like that and then strips it down and rebuilds it in a modern way.' Steadily, the fashion world began to acknowledge that here was a young man who was not only reviving a celebrated fashion house but was a major force in his own right. His flatteringly cut trousers became must-haves for fashion editors, while his ability to mix couture style with a contemporary dress-down sensibility drew the attention of the high street copyists.

Tom Ford's enthusiasm for Ghesquière led to PPR-owned Gucci Group buying Balenciaga in 2001 and, with it, access to the archives. But when Ford and chief executive Domenico De Sole walked out in 2004 and a new chief executive, Robert Polet, was brought in, the omens did not look good for Ghesquière. Balenciaga, despite its heritage, was lumped in with emerging brands such as Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. The pressure was on to turn the business into profit. Ghesquière's insistence on maintaining a high-cost atelier in Paris (the clothes were manufactured in Italy) was considered an expensive luxury by the new management team. On top of this, the young designer had a reputation for being uncompromising and troublesome.

It was a sign of insecurity, the designer said later. ‘I used to be more defensive and less comfortable because I was feeling threatened.'

With the Lariat handbag, Ghesquière created a money-spinner that pleased his new boss. Celebrities and wealthy customers worldwide fell over themselves to place orders for the multi-zipped bag with a braided handle and dangling pulls. In 2003, Ghesquière launched a collection titled Balenciaga Edition, recreating ten or fifteen couture pieces from the archives. His autumn/winter collection for 2006 was a highly praised homage to the great couturier, timed to coincide with a major Balenciaga retrospective at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile in Paris. From the boxy suits to the windowpane checks, the spirit of Balenciaga ran through every piece, but always reworked to make them fresh for a twenty-first century audience. While Ghesquière's collections had tended to reflect Balenciaga's own preference for round shapes, for spring 2007 the designer opted for a straight silhouette, with pinched, padded and highlighted sleeves. Cathy Horyn of
The New York Times
called it ‘an ideological break with the retro futurism of Balenciaga. What we are now seeing is the contemporary future of Nicolas Ghesquière.'

By then his status was ensured. Ghesquière was featured in
Time's
100 Most Influential People of 2005. He was made a Chevalier des arts et lettres, an award of merit bestowed by the French government which highlights contributions to French culture. Through all this, he has kept a low personal profile, but all that is likely to change when he launches his own signature label, which seems inevitable as his reputation continues to flourish. He believes his own line could be developed in tandem with continuing to work at Balenciaga. ‘Balenciaga is part of my identity,' he said in 2005. ‘If I want to start my own line, I have to find a very specific and special concept.' Ghesquière is cautious about overstating the role of fashion as commentary on the world. ‘You have to look at the world and then forget it,' he said in 2007. ‘Of course I live in my time and I'm really curious. But, at the same time, I don't think it has a direct impact on my worth.'

Although designer fashion in the early twenty-first century has become big global business, Ghesquière believes there is still the freedom to experiment. ‘What is really interesting about being a designer today is that you can occupy those two positions: being a forward thinker and at the same time someone who sells clothes.' Unlike any other designer in this book, Ghesquière's best work may be yet to come. In the great economic slowdown of 2009, the fashion world looked to Ghesquière to suggest a new way forward for design. The austerity of his autumn 2008 collection seemed to presage the onset of hard times. His spring/summer 2009 collection featured innovative cocoon shapes and fabric that appeared to melt around the body, prompting further eulogies, even from those who found his designs hard to pin down. As Julie Gil-hart, a veteran buyer for Barneys New York, put it: ‘He has a knack for showing us things that are not quite in our vernacular yet.'

Further reading:
Nicolas Ghesquière has yet to be the subject of a monograph, although its arrival can only be a matter of time. He was exhaustively interviewed in the early years of the twenty-first century.

The authors wish gratefully to acknowledge the academics and fellow journalists who have been quoted and referenced in this book and the many who may not figure here but have, over the years, provided a basis of knowledge and insight upon which our own expertise is built. The history and culture of dress is becoming a well-explored field, but, in researching and writing this book, which is intended to inspire further study, we have concluded that, when it comes to fashion, among all the picture books, there are some lamentable gaps on the shelves, gaps that should be filled with real thought and analysis. There are many fascinating books, works of research and scholarship, on the great fashion designers and their often equally interesting peers just begging for an author. Both authors have worked closely with the photographer, Chris Moore, over several decades and would like to acknowledge both his invaluable help with this book and his long friendship.