A Look Back At Balenciaga's Most Iconic Moments Through History

Cristóbal Balenciaga opened his Paris couture house in August 1937, having been forced out of his native Spain — where his clients included royalty and aristocracy — by the country's Civil War.

He quickly became just as successful in Paris, with customers reportedly risking their safety to travel to Paris during World War II to buy his dresses and gowns.

Post-war, he offered an alternative to Christian Dior's New Look, characterised by its nipped-in waist, championing an empire line silhouette instead. Dior himself called Balenciaga 'the master of us all.'

His use of bubble hemlines (pictured) was lauded, as was his creation of the sack dress and the cocoon coat - all silhouettes that remain to this day. During his career, he mentored designers including Hubert de Givenchy, Emanuel Ungaro and Oscar de la Renta.

In 1956, Cristobal designed Ingrid Bergman's costumes for the historical film 'Anastasia'. 

The pieces created for the film included a navy suit and a princess-line satin gown with sipper-satin stole (pictured),

Cristobal Balenciaga become well known for his Hollywood fans, including Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Jackie Kennedy (who famously fell out with her husband over her Balenciaga bills).

Pictured: Elizabeth Taylor in 1967, wearing an intricate sari dress designed by Cristobal Balenciaga

Actress Anita Ekberg leaving Balenciaga's Avenue George V store in Paris in 1962.

Balenciaga came out of retirement in 1972 to create the wedding dress of Spanish aristocrat and socialite María del Carmen Martínez-Bordiú (pictured). He passed away two weeks later.

The dress (pictured) featured more than 10,000 pearls and used 20 spools of silver thread. Balenciaga is alleged to have completely remade the gown just two days before the wedding because he wasn't satisfied with the fit.

Nicolas Ghesquière designed his first bag, the 'Motorcycle Lariat', three years after arriving at the fashion house. He produces two prototypes initially but label heads decide not to put it into production. Eventually he persuades them to produce just 25, gifting them to models editors and friends, including Kate Moss (pictured in 2003). The design quickly became one of the first 'It bags', seen on everyone from Moss to the Olsen twins. It is still sold 

'No logo. Very light. Very effective,"  he told WWD of why he thought the bag became so sought after. 'It was a new fresh thing, but it looked like an old, good, friendly thing. And I think the brand also was becoming desirable. People had desire for my goods and [the bag] was the most accessible piece. You could be a Balenciaga girl with that bag.'

Nicolas Ghesquière designed the dress worn by Jennifer Connelly to pick up her Best Supporting Actress award at the 2002 Oscars. The pale tiered gown worn with a skinny scarf didn't top everyone's best-dressed list but it did cement itself in red carpet history.

If you had $100,000 to spare, you could have snapped up Balenciaga's now-iconic 'robot' leggings from the  SS07 collection. 

They were created of hundreds of individual metal components to give an armour-like look.

Beyonce famously wore them to perform at the 2007 BET Awards.

The AW07 collection saw Ghesquière send super-slim preppy blazers down the catwalk. They quickly garnered waiting lists at retailers all over the world, despite costing in excess of £1,000. 

In 2012, the house introduced the 'Balenciaga Edition' line, for which the design studio selected 12 designs and six pieces of jewellery from the house archives of Cristobal Balenciaga's haute couture collections, dating between 1945 and 1967, to redevelop using the original fabrics and construction but replicating them with current manufacturing techniques.

In 2013, Cate Blanchett wore a recreated dress originally designed by Cristobal Balenciaga in 1967. The piece looked like it could have stepped off of a modern-day Balenziaga catwalk.

Ghesquière departed the label in 2012, making way for American designer Alexander Wang to take the helm of the historic fashion house.

Pictured: Lady Gaga at the 2015 Met Gala

He looked immediately to the house's archives, drawing inspiration from Cristobal's designs. 

Pictures: Wang and Julianne Moore at the 2013 Met Gala