What modeling was like for Cristóbal Balenciaga

Imagine a dress so beautiful that you still dream about it more than 50 years later.

Danielle Slavik, Cristóbal Balenciaga's house model from 1964 to 1968, when the Spanish couturier hung up his scissors for good, fell in love with a black velvet long-sleeved number from the winter 1966 haute couture collection bought by Grace Kelly, and worn during the celebration of its 40th anniversary in Monaco.

"It was my favorite dress of my entire modeling career," said Slavik, a fine-boned Parisian of Czech origin who would work for another 20 years, for Chanel, Madame Grès and Hubert de Givenchy, an admirer and Balenciaga sidekick.

Current Balenciaga creative director Demna brought Slavik out of retirement for his second couture collection, which showed at 10 Avenue George V on Wednesday. He gave Slavik a replica of the dress as a thank you gift from 1966.

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Demna heard about Slavik while researching her collection and asked her heritage department to find her. She was initially reluctant to return to the track.

"I said, 'No, you can't; I am too old. I can't show my arms; I can't show my legs," she recalled in an interview at Balenciaga headquarters, for which she came dressed in a baggy blue sweater and slacks. "But he insisted, and I understood that it was to pay tribute to Monsieur Balenciaga, so I accepted, despite my anxiety."

Slavik said she fell into modeling by chance when she accompanied a friend to a casting advertised in a French newspaper, and was hired on the spot. The salary was modest - she remembers asking for 1,500 francs a month - and the long hours, from morning to evening, with daily fashion shows at 3:30 p.m. it lasted two hours.

But she said it was "love at first sight" when she met designer Christian Dior, dubbed "the master of us all".

"He was a very benevolent and very generous man," Slavik enthused about Cristóbal Balenciaga. "I almost want to cry every time I talk about him."

Back then, in-house models were hired for six-month periods, after which you could be fired "if you no longer inspired the couturier," she explained.

"It was extraordinary to be engaged to Balenciaga because he was the greatest designer, the most esteemed, the most prestigious," she said.

Slavik described the fittings in revered terms, noting that they took place in near total silence. "I admired his perfectionism," she said. “I really liked the cocktail dresses, which were very beautiful in lace, then the evening dresses. But I also loved the suits and day dresses.”

Sometimes models in the house would receive original sewing samples if they didn't sell by the end of the season. "In fact, there was almost nothing left of the collections," she said. "I had a suit, two cocktail dresses and an evening dress, that's all."

With her dark nail polish, face mask, and wardrobe of wrinkled, oversized suits and hoodies, Demna cuts a different figure to the founder, usually pictured in a white blouse with a shirt and a tie.

Yet Slavik says that she "found the same benevolence, a great generosity. There is something about [Demna] that I felt when I met Monsieur Balenciaga for the first time. moved."

“What touched me with Demna was the fact that it pays homage to Mr. Balenciaga. I think he has a lot of talent. "During Mr. Balenciaga's time, everyone loved him in the house. And when I met the Demna team, it's the same. They all tell me how much they have chance to work with him, how caring he is. And there is this atmosphere of admiration. They are all very close to him, ultimately very happy to work here.”

Slavik admitted she was nervous about the show, especially when told how fast modern fashion shows are, lasting just over 10 minutes. "I'm going to have to walk fast," she said with a smile.

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