iPedia Free Information Center

Information about Pierre Balmain

Enlarge picture
Pierre Balmain and the actress Ruth Ford, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1947
Pierre Alexandre Claudius Balmain (b. St. Jean de Maurienne, France, May 18, 1914 – Paris, France, June 29, 1982) was a French fashion designer. Known for sophistication and elegance, he said that "dressmaking is the architecture of movement."

Balmain's father, who died when the future designer was 7 years old, was the owner of a wholesale drapery business. His mother and her sisters operated a fashion boutique. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, he went to work for the fashion designer Edward Molyneux, for whom he worked from 1934 until 1939. He joined Lucien Lelong after World War II and opened his own fashion house in 1945.

Balmain also created perfumes, including Vent Vert (1947), his first successful scent and one of the best-selling perfumes of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Jolie Madame (1953), Ivoire (1979), and Eau d'Amazonie (2006). His first perfume bore his company's address, Elysées 64-83.

Balmain was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Costume Design and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design for Happy New Year (1980). Additional Broadway theatre credits include costumes for Katharine Hepburn in The Millionairess (1952) and Josephine Baker for her eponymous 1964 revue. He also was a costume designer for 16 films, including the Brigitte Bardot vehicle And God Created Woman, and designed on-screen wardrobes for the actresses Vivien Leigh and Mae West.

Balmain's 1964 autobiography was titled My Years and Seasons.

His companion was the Danish designer Erik Mortenson, who worked as a designer at Balmain from 1948 until 1991.

See also

External links

May 18 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 1152 - Henry II marries Eleanor of Aquitaine.

..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1880s  1890s  1900s  - 1910s -  1920s  1930s  1940s
1911 1912 1913 - 1914 - 1915 1916 1917

Year 1914 (MCMXIV
..... Click the link for more information.
June 29 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 512 - A solar eclipse is recorded by a monastic chronicler in Ireland.

..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1950s  1960s  1970s  - 1980s -  1990s  2000s  2010s
1979 1980 1981 - 1982 - 1983 1984 1985

Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
Anthem
"La Marseillaise"


..... Click the link for more information.
Fashion design is the applied art dedicated to the design of clothing and lifestyle accessories created within the cultural and social influences of a specific time.
..... Click the link for more information.
Edward Molyneux (1891–1974) was a British fashion designer whose fashion house was in operation from 1919 until 1950.

Overview

After a period working for the British fashion designer Lucile, Molyneux, a former illustrator, opened his fashion house in Paris in 1919
..... Click the link for more information.
Lucien Lelong (11 October 1889-11 May 1958) was a French couturier who was prominent from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Career

Born in Paris as the son of Arthur Lelong, the owner of a textile shop, he trained at the Hautes Etudes de Commerciales in Paris and opened his fashion
..... Click the link for more information.
Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, objects, and living spaces a pleasant smell.

Describing a perfume



The precise formulas of commercial perfumes are kept secret.
..... Click the link for more information.
Tony Award

Designed by Herman Rosse, 1949
Awarded for Excellence in theatre
Presented by American Theatre Wing and the League of American Theatres and Producers
Country  United States
First awarded 1947
..... Click the link for more information.
The Drama Desk Award, created in 1955, is an award recognizing shows produced off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, and for legitimate not-for-profit theaters, in addition to Broadway productions.
..... Click the link for more information.
Happy New Year
'

Music Cole Porter
Lyrics Cole Porter
Book Burt Shevelove
Based upon Philip Barry's play Holiday
Productions 1980 Broadway Happy New Year
..... Click the link for more information.
Broadway theatre[1] is the most well known form of professional theatre to the American general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows.
..... Click the link for more information.
Katharine Hepburn

from the trailer for The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Birth name Katharine Houghton Hepburn
Born November 8 1906(1906--)
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
..... Click the link for more information.
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
The Millionairess is a 1960 romantic comedy film set in London, directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren. It is a loose adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1936 play of the same name.
..... Click the link for more information.
Josephine Baker (or Jos̩phine Baker in francophone countries) (June 3, 1906 РApril 12, 1975)[1] is one of the world's most beloved entertainers. She was an American-born French expatriate who later became a French citizen.
..... Click the link for more information.
eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, who has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item. An eponymous person is the person referred to by the eponym.
..... Click the link for more information.
revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in nineteenth-century American popular entertainment and melodrama, but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from
..... Click the link for more information.
Brigitte Bardot

Birth name Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot
Born September 28 1934 (1934--) (age 73)
Paris, France

Spouse(s) Roger Vadim
..... Click the link for more information.
And God Created Woman is the title of two different films directed by Roger Vadim:
  • And God Created Woman (1956 film)
  • And God Created Woman (1988 film)
In television
  • "And God Created Woman (Father Ted)" is an episode of Father Ted

..... Click the link for more information.
Vivien Leigh

from the film Fire Over England (1937)
Birth name Vivian Mary Hartley
Born November 5 1913(1913--)
Darjeeling, West Bengal, British India
Died
..... Click the link for more information.
Mae West

Mae West, 1933
Birth name Mary Jane West
Born July 17 1893(1893--)
Woodhaven, New York
Died November 22 1980 (aged 87)
Los Angeles, California

Spouse(s)
..... Click the link for more information.
autobiography, from the Greek autos, 'self', bios, 'life' and graphein, 'write', is a biography written by the subject or composed conjointly with a collaborative writer (styled "as told to" or "with").
..... Click the link for more information.
Balmain is a fashion house that was founded by Pierre Balmain.

In the period following World War II, Pierre Balmain was "a king of French fashion" and outfitted stars including Ava Gardner and Brigitte Bardot.
..... Click the link for more information.


This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Herod_Archelaus


page counter