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Dress thumbnail 2
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Not currently on display at the V&A

Dress

mid 1950s (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Blue slubbed silk day dress with matching long-sleeved bolero jacket tied in front.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Dress
  • Bolero
Materials and techniques
slubbed silk
Brief description
Eisa (Balenciaga). Blue slubbed silk day dress with matching bolero, Spain, mid-1950s.
Physical description
Blue slubbed silk day dress with matching long-sleeved bolero jacket tied in front.
Dimensions
  • Shoulder to hem length: 108cm
  • Waist width: 53cm
  • Shoulders width: 42cm
  • Bolero length: 37cm
  • Bolero jacket shoulders width: 43cm
Gallery label
Day dress and bolero Silk Cristóbal Balenciaga (Eisa label), Madrid, early 1950s V&A: T.153-2015(12/05/2017)
Object history
Worn by American client Anne Bullitt, Bullitt lived in Madrid with the second of her four husbands. This simple dress is an example of the more everyday production of the Eisa house, not all of whose clients were confident trendsetters. The quality of dressmaking is good, with hand-finished hems and seams, but it is not to the extremely high standard of the Parisian house.

If the cost of his Paris salon was out of reach, there were other ways to buy a Balenciaga design. Some were sold less expensively under Balenciaga's label Eisa in Spain, where labour costs were lower and cheaper fabrics might be used.
Collection
Accession number
T.153:1&2-2015

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Record createdNovember 17, 2015
Record URL
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