The Life Of Cristóbel Balenciaga Coming To Disney+
The private lives of famous fashion designers will forever intrigue audiences, with recent shows like Netflix’s Halston and the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace fuelling our interest. With Apple TV+ working on shows about Coco Chanel and Christian Dior, it makes sense that Disney+ has chosen Cristóbal Balenciaga as its fashion protagonist.
The show will be Disney+’s first Spanish scripted original with Spanish film actor Alberto San Juan cast in the title role. "Being part of this project is an honor: for the character, the script, the directors and the team in general. It’s a challenge for everyone. As it always is, but this time a little more. It’s almost like making three films in four months, in different languages and with an interval of a few decades between the beginning and the end. In a nutshell: it’s an emotion!” Game of Thrones actress Gemma Whelan has also been announced!
The show, which has the working title Balenciaga, will span several decades of the legendary designer’s life from the Spanish civil war up to the 1970s. It does not yet have a release date.
Left: Balenciaga in 1950. Right: Alberto San Juan as Balenciaga. Disney+
Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre was born in Spain in 1895 to a fisherman and a seamstress. As a child, he spent most of his time with his mother while she worked and by the age of 12, he became the apprentice of a tailor. When he was just a teenager, a noblewoman of his town, the Marchioness de Casa Torress, became his first patron and customer. In good faith, she sent Balenciaga to Madrid where he undertook formal tailoring training, a skill that would prove vital to his future.
After many years of success in Spain, which included dressing the Royal Family and aristocrats, Balenciaga opened his first Parisian couturier in August 1937 but World War II through a spanner in the works. It wouldn’t be until 1951 that he truly took the designer world by storm with his uniquely structural designs. In 1959, his work shifted into empire waistlines which would dominate the 1960s.
He passed away in 1972. Today, the Balenciaga fashion house thrives under the direction of Demna Gvasalia.
