The Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, inaugurated on 7 June 2011, is located in Getaria, the couturier’s birthplace and the scene of his formative years and professional maturity, essential for understanding his contribution to the world of fashion.
With the aim of raising awareness of Balenciaga’s life and work, his relevance in the history of fashion and design, and the contemporaneity of his legacy, the Museum houses a unique collection. Its breadth – more than 5,600 pieces from a collection that continues to grow thanks to deposits and donations – and its formal and chronological extension – including, for example, the designer’s earliest surviving models – make this collection one of the most complete, coherent and interesting.
Another exceptional value of the collection lies in the provenance of the pieces. Not for nothing were Balenciaga’s major international clients prominent social figures in the middle decades of the century: Mona Von Bismarck, Rachel L. Mellon, Patricia López Wilshaw, Barbara Hutton, Lilian Baels, Grace Kelly and Madame Bricard wore some of the models held in the Archives.
The Costume Museum. Centro de Interpretación del Patrimonio Etnológico is a state museum located in Madrid whose collections focus on the history of costume and ethnographic heritage. The costume and fashion collection is made up of pieces from the 16th century to the present day.
The mission of the Museo del Traje is to conserve, protect and promote the costume and fashion collections it holds, as well as all the knowledge, direct or transversal, that is derived from them, providing its visitors with accessible discourses and activities, fashion students with a place to exchange knowledge and professionals in the sector with a meeting and development point. to promote the national fashion industry within the framework of an event with great media resonance that brings together the most important international fashion professionals.
The institution prominently showcases the historical evolution of clothing, analysing its technical, social, ideological and creative implications through the diversity and continuous change of clothing practices. To this end, it brings together the necessary material samples and informative elements, from the most remote periods that can be documented to the present day, which must be permanent and lead it to be a chronicler of the evolution and achievements of contemporary fashion design.
The Balenciaga collection held by the Museo del Traje is made up of more than 380 pieces that amply exemplify the different stages of the couturier’s work.
The Disseny Hub de Barcelona (DHub) is the public facility of reference for the recognition and projection of the Creative Industries, as well as for the dissemination of the heritage and culture of design.
With this in mind, the DHub deploys promotional policies in the fields of design, architecture, urban planning, innovation and technology, welcoming and supporting the city’s creative talent, and working with training centres, creators and business environments on a local and international scale.
The DHub is the headquarters of the Museu del Disseny, with the dual function of conserving, interpreting and exhibiting its collections and preparing a proposal for exhibitions and activities related to design.
These objectives are translated into a programme that aims to disseminate and bring these disciplines closer to the public through exhibitions and activities for all audiences, but also seeks to boost and promote the sector through a programme that includes conferences, festivals and awards in conjunction with the entities based at the DHub: Barcelona Design Centre (BcD), the Promotion of Arts and Design (FAD), the Art Directors Club of Europe (ADCE), the Association for the Study of Furniture and the El Clot-Josep Benet Library.
Also fundamental is the DHub’s role in education and research, through close links with universities and an extensive programme dedicated to schools, as well as the work carried out by the DHub’s Documentation Centre, a space for consultation and research specialising in decorative arts and design that gathers and preserves documentation related to these subjects, disseminates it and places it at the service of professionals and researchers.
The Alventosa Talamantes Collection, a Spanish fashion archive specialising in the 20th and 21st centuries, was created in 2020 under the ownership of the art historian Guillem B. Alventosa Talamantes and his interest in the study and documentation of the history of Spanish fashion. It is a collection that was started with the intention of being able to illustrate the different exhibitions and research related to clothing that have been carried out at the Museu Valencià de la Festa in Algemesí, the town where the owner was born and where the archive is located.
It is a large collection that includes different types of clothing (dresses, outfits, tailleurs, coats, capes…), accessories and documentation (magazines, publications, posters, cards, correspondence, figurines…) related to the different stages of the Festa de Algemesí. ) related to the stages from the end of the 19th century (1880-1890) to the present day in relation to national fashion of different styles and periods, from haute couture with pieces by great creators from all over Spain such as Cristóbal Balenciaga, Manuel Pertegaz, Elio Berhanyer, Asunción Bastida, Felisa Irigoyen, Herrera y Ollero, Isaura y Rosario to pieces of Valencian creation such as Francis Montesinos, Tráfico de Modas, Juan Andrés Mompó, Pepe Picó, Valentín Herraiz. It also includes some ready-to-wear and handicrafts (dressmaking) from local workshops.
The collection, with around 200 items, is continually being revised and expanded, making loans to exhibitions at different levels, both national and international, and participating in important exhibitions such as ‘’In Madrid: A history of fashion. 1940-1970‘’ (2022) organised by the Comunidad de Madrid and Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural, ‘’El siglo de Balenciaga‘’ (2022 and 2024) organised and curated by Pedro Usabiaga in Jávea and Valladolid or ‘’Pedro del Hierro. From the master to the brand‘’ (2024) organised at the Lázaro Galdeano Museum in Madrid and curated by Laura Cerrato Mera, among many others.
The López-Trabado Collection was created in 2014 as a collection focused on the study and dissemination of 20th century Spanish fashion and its connection with international fashions. Its director and owner, Lydia Garcia, is constantly adding to the collection, which is made up of a textile archive of nearly 800 pieces and a documentary archive of over 8,000 items, making it a national benchmark collection in this field.
The Sonsoles Diez de Rivera y de Icaza Collection is one of the best Haute Couture collections in Spain, containing some of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s most spectacular and ‘catwalk’ pieces.
- Cristóbal Balenciaga: ‘But… Sonsoles, you can’t choose that dress! It’s too much, that’s from a catwalk!’
- Sonsoles de Icaza, Marquise of Llanzol: ‘Cristóbal… did you make it?
- Cristóbal Balenciaga: ‘Yes… but…’
- Sonsoles de Icaza, Marquise of Llanzol: ‘Is it elegant?’
- Cristóbal Balenciaga: ‘Yes.’
- Sonsoles de Icaza, Marquise of Llanzol: ‘Well, I’ll wear it!’
It treasures more than 400 pieces by the master, including dresses, coats, suits and hats, some designed for Sonsoles de Icaza, Marquise of Llanzol, and others for her daughter, Sonsoles Diez de Rivera, both personal friends and clients of the master. A large part of this collection is deposited in the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum in Getaria, a museum built to honour the figure and work of the master and for which Sonsoles Diez de Rivera herself, president of the patronage commission and patron of the Cristóbal Balenciaga Foundation, has done so much.
Some of these pieces can be admired with the prominence and importance they deserve in this exhibition at the Palazzo Morando. Specifically, three of the most iconic pieces of the collection make up the room called ‘L’armadio più spagnolo’ – ‘The most Spanish wardrobe, that of Sonsoles Diez de Rivera’, demonstrating the great inspiration of Spain in Balenciaga. The exhibition also includes Sonsoles Diez de Rivera’s wedding dress, ‘the most Balenciaga’, a real jewel made by Cristóbal Balenciaga himself and the only dress by the master embroidered entirely in silver.
Finally, a wonderful set of embroidered dress and pale pink coat that belonged to the Marquise of Llanzol becomes the best kept secret of the Palazzo Morando, being the only piece on display in the Piano Nobile and demonstrating the importance of Balenciaga’s clients and the environment for which these works of art were created.
The Sonsoles Diez de Rivera y de Icaza Collection also includes documentary pieces such as photographs by Gyenes and Cecil Beaton, among others. Some of them can be admired in the exhibition, including a very special one: a photograph of Cristóbal Balenciaga himself signed and dedicated ‘To Sonsoles’.
This exhibition and its curator, Javier Echeverría Sola, will be eternally grateful to Sonsoles Diez de Rivera for being part of this tribute to Balenciaga, which in turn becomes a tribute to his figure and to everything she has always done for the preservation and dissemination of the master’s work.
The Tere Garasa Collection was created as a tribute to the couturier Tere Garasa, who was passionate about Balenciaga, and who instilled her passion for the master’s work in her daughter, Mª Asun Sola, and her grandson, Javier Echeverría Sola, curator of this exhibition and manager of the collection.
This collection houses a valuable set of documentary archives focused on the work of Cristóbal Balenciaga. These archives, which include magazines from the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, allow us to admire Balenciaga’s creations through the eyes of some of the best photographers of the 20th century, Horst, Cecil Beaton, Avedon… Several of these pieces can be admired in the exhibition ‘CRISTÓBAL BALENCIAGA | Shoes from Spain Tribute’ and also in the complementary exhibition ‘a phographic preview’ at the Palazzo Cordusio.
The Tere Garasa Collection also includes an important collection of 20th century clothing, with a special focus on antique fur, offering an exceptional testimony to an often unknown division of fashion.
El Guardarropa de Concierto de Teresa Berganza (Teresa Berganza’s Concert Wardrobe) houses 100 models dating from the 1950s to 2010, a collection of the dresses that the singer wore in her recitals and concerts. Creations by the most important fashion houses of each period, among which the Eisa sari featured in the exhibition stands out. The life and performances of the mezzo-soprano of the century can be apprehended through this collection, which is also a history of 20th and 21st century fashion. Román Padín Otero is the curator of this exceptional wardrobe.
The Fundació Antoni de Montpalau was created in Sabadell in 2004 by Josep Casamartina i Parassols and Anna Maria Casanovas Crusafon, with a name inspired by the novel Les històries naturals by Joan Perucho. It was initially created with the aim of collecting Art Nouveau and Art Deco fabrics, but it soon expanded to include 20th century fashion up to the present day. Converted into a foundation in 2013, it currently has more than 19,000 pieces of clothing, including haute couture and ready-to-wear, both Spanish and international, as well as accessories, more than 30,000 drawings, photographs and documentation, making it one of the most important private collections in Spain.
The activities of the foundation are carried out by Josep Casamartina i Parassols, director and vice-president, and Ismael Núñez Muñoz, curator of the collection. The foundation makes itself known through the organisation of thematic and monographic exhibitions that it presents in museums and institutions throughout the country, its presence on social networks and publications of material from its collection, as well as the production of documentaries and the organisation of lecture series, in addition to loans to museums and institutions.
Since 2008 it has held more than twenty-five exhibitions dedicated to raising awareness of Spanish fashion in the 20th and 21st centuries, in the country’s leading museums and institutions such as the Museo del Traje, Madrid; the Museu d’Història de Catalunya, the Real Círculo del Liceo, the Fundación Rocamora and the Palau Robert, Barcelona; the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa, Getaria, Basque Country; the Museu de Mallorca, Palma de Mallorca; the Espai Cultura, Sabadell… and the Espai Catalunya Europa, Brussels. He has also collaborated on exhibitions at the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum and the Alhambra in Granada. He has co-produced several documentaries on Balenciaga and other couturiers, as well as Catalan prêt-à-porter. He has also edited monographs on haute couture, the art of hats and the world of jeans. The activities of the Fundació Antoni de Montpalau have been the subject of numerous reports in magazines such as Vogue, Marie Claire, Harpers Bazaar, El País, La Vanguardia, El Mundo, ABC… or the Parisian Griffé. Thanks to the prestige achieved by the Fundació Antoni de Montpalau, the Spanish Royal House asked for its collaboration to lend the two Balenciaga pieces worn by Her Majesty Queen Letizia in the portrait painted by Anne Leibowitz in 2024.
