To say that the runup to Pierre Balmain’s first show was fraught with complications is an understatement.

Working out of a cramped Paris apartment where his office was the bathroom — with wooden planks on the bathtub serving as a makeshift desk — the couturier launched his label amid the chaos that followed the liberation of Paris in August 1944.

“We worked that time in what is probably the popular conception of the way fashion collections are prepared: frenziedly, with people fainting, and staff having to be plied with black coffee to keep them going,” Balmain recalled in his 1964 memoir, “My Years and Seasons.”

Having designed for Lucien Lelong through most of World War II, Balmain set up his own couture house at 44 rue François 1er just after occupying German soldiers vacated the building. His mother, who had a boutique in the resort town of Aix-les-Bains, plowed all her money into the brand and supervised preparations for the debut.

But nothing went according to plan. “In every way the circumstances of that first showing seemed to be as full of drama — or melodrama — as a second-rate film. Even my opening date, which I had fixed for Oct. 12, 1945,” the couturier said.

Balmain had been careful to choose a date when no other Paris designer was showing, but found out at the last minute that Madame Grès had moved her show, initially scheduled a week earlier, to the same day. Desperate, he phoned her and explained he could not afford to recall his invitations. Grès agreed to reschedule.

“I shall never forget that generous gesture. Madame Grès, one of the great ladies of the Paris fashion world, had readily altered her own arrangements to help an unknown designer. Her consideration helped me not only in a practical way, but also bolstered my self-confidence,” Balmain wrote.

But his troubles were not over. On the morning of the show, police officers arrived with a bailiff brandishing an eviction notice, seeking to requisition the premises for the French government. Balmain, who had not slept all night, had a fit and threw them out — miraculously, with no immediate consequences.

Despite these hurdles, Balmain never doubted he would make it. During the war, he had met American writer Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas, who were clients of his mother’s boutique, and designed some outfits for them. In a letter to Stein in September 1945, he invited them to attend his first show.

“I am barely sleeping. I’m already in a state of nervous tension — but I have so much confidence in my destiny that I am sure of making a success of this house,” he wrote on paper printed with the logo and address of his fledgling brand.

“An Apostle of Simplicity”

His confidence was justified. Early reviews were overwhelmingly positive, with the U.K. and U.S. editions of Vogue running a feature written by Stein and illustrated with photos by Cecil Beaton, who joined her at that first show.

Balmain’s first look was a brown oversized tunic inspired by a Breton fisherman’s blouse, worn with gray flannel slacks and low-heeled brown suede shoes. The model walked with the designer’s pet Airedale, who promptly lunged at Stein’s poodle.

“There was a furious battle, before Gertrude, myself, the mannequin, and some of the salesgirls succeeded in separating the dogs. But the dog-fight had caused amusement and set a note of informality which probably helped the show get off to a good start,” he said.  

The oversized top with patch pockets was an instant hit. He made an open-necked version for day, and added a round embroidered collar for evening. Beaton photographed the looks on models standing in an artist’s backyard surrounded by junk, signaling a new form of glamour emerging from the ashes of war.

Noting Balmain’s penchant for clean lines, WWD wrote in December 1946: “He is an apostle of simplicity in fashion design or at least this is his mood of the moment. He expresses his belief in simple clothes, which, however, must not be devoid of ideas. He approves the small waist and figure lines generally but rejects fantastic exaggeration.”

He rapidly emerged as a key player in France’s post-war fashion renaissance, garnering a clientele of royalty and movie stars including Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor; Marlene Dietrich and Judy Garland. Balmain was also a prolific costume designer for theater and film, dressing the likes of Sophia Loren, Vivien Leigh, Brigitte Bardot and Katharine Hepburn.  

Born in 1914 in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the mountainous Savoie region of southeastern France, Balmain had wanted to be a fashion designer since he was child dressing paper dolls with scraps of cloth. His father, who had inherited a wholesale drapery business, died suddenly when Pierre was 7 years old.

His mother, Françoise, managed a fashion boutique called Galeries Parisiennes with her two sisters, but tried to discourage her son from a career in fashion.

Balmain started studying architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1933, while freelancing for Robert Piguet on the side. A year later, he dropped out and joined the studio of Edward Molyneux, where he remained for five years before joining Lelong.

Balmain was mobilized from 1939 to 1941, shuttling between Paris and his native Savoie, though he was confined to office duties. In December 1941, he returned to Lelong, where he worked alongside Christian Dior. The two got along so well, they discussed opening a couture house together, but eventually decided to go their separate ways and grew apart.

Though Balmain’s business soared, he was eclipsed by Dior, who captured the popular imagination with his New Look, launched in February 1947. Ironically, Balmain had published a booklet the year before titled “A New French Style.” In it, Toklas comments on his debut collection, alongside sketches by René Gruau of eight key looks.

“For the first time we saw dresses designed with knowledge and understanding of the human body,” Toklas wrote. “This completely contemporary conception of fashion truly marks the renewal of Parisian elegance.”

Ambassador of French style

Like Dior, Balmain understood early the importance of establishing an international presence.

During fittings for the wedding dress of Stella Carcanos, daughter of Argentina’s ambassador to Great Britain, he made inroads with the British aristocracy in London. Soon after, Helena Rubinstein came knocking, asking him to design a capsule collection to accompany a new makeup line.

The launch in September 1946 at luxury department store B. Altman & Co. in New York City was promoted with a six-page color spread in Vogue shot by Horst P. Horst, with a caption heralding a “New Look from Paris.” After a monthlong visit, Balmain told WWD he intended to drop new designs every two weeks to cater to U.S. ready-to-wear manufacturers.

“With planes making travel a matter of hours it brings all the world close to Paris and in many parts of the world the seasons do not correspond to our seasons. For instance, many of our South American customers want summer dresses when we are holding our fall showings,” he said.

“I aim to arrange my business so that an American buyer can come into my shop in Paris any time during the year and see new models,” added Balmain, who had presented 180 looks the previous season, more than any other Paris designer, he claimed.

On his frequent trips to the U.S., Balmain would give lectures to clubs and girls’ colleges, positioning himself as a representative for the French couture sector.

“Gertrude Stein had recommended me never to go there as a commercial traveler, but always as an ambassador of French civilization,” said the designer, who won the 1955 Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion.

Balmain missed his own show in February 1947 after being run over the night before by a U.S. Air Force sergeant. Undeterred, he spent his convalescence planning the launch of his first fragrance, named Elysées 64/83 after the phone number of his couture salon, and a world trip that would take him to Australia via Egypt, Bahrain, Singapore, Indonesia and Myanmar.

Further treks followed to North and South Africa, South America, Japan, Thailand and China, inspiring collections like his 1948 beachwear line, featuring tropical-patterned cotton sarong skirts, or his fall 1948 haute couture collection, with asymmetric dresses constructed like Indian saris.

“Balmain has completely modernized the Oriental influence, avoiding familiar embroideries or picturesque treatments in favor of clean-cut lines and plain colors,” WWD wrote of his fall 1949 couture line, which featured kimono-sleeved coats and colors named Lotus Pink, Lacquer Red and Lantern Yellow.

Balmain traveled both to scout new markets and for pleasure, exploring far-flung destinations like the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan and bringing back numerous art objects and mementoes that filled his 19th-century villa in the Paris suburb of Croissy — including Tanagra statuettes, 17^th-century Chinese porcelain, and nearly 400 Gallé vases.

Between shows, he would repair to the Italian island of Elba, where in 1958 he commissioned Italian architect Leonardo Ricci to build him a futuristic villa with an oval pool and lush Asian-inspired gardens. 

Balmain’s wanderlust was reflected in designs bearing names like “Boeing,” “Voyage,” “Train Spécial” and “Départ.”  He held fashion shows in locations ranging from London to Caracas, Venezuela, where he established a branch in 1954.

But Balmain became best known for his long-standing association with the Thai royal family. After Queen Sirikit commissioned the designer to create hundreds of outfits for a months-long state visit in 1960, he dressed her for more than two decades, and even helped the country to promote its traditional silks.

He also created uniforms for airlines including TWA, Southern Airways and Singapore Airlines; dressed the attendants at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, and outfitted powerful women such as the first female pilot at Air France, the first female general of the French Army, and France’s first female police commissioner.

Jolie Madame

Balmain’s style was best summed up by the name of one of his fragrances, Jolie Madame, launched in 1952. Underpinned by his early architectural training, his body-conscious silhouette rested on strict tailoring, cinched waists and strong shoulders.

During this time, the house — run for decades by the formidable Ginette Spanier — in 1954 hired a young Karl Lagerfeld, who became Balmain’s assistant, and later apprentice, for three years.

Despite his reputation for decorum, Balmain could also inject a dose of sizzle. A fan of animal prints, he used leopard print with abandon and had a huge zebra-skin rug in his office.

He created a sensation with the transformable dress he made for Juliette Gréco’s performance at the “April in Paris” costume ball in 1952 at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel: an austere black long-sleeve gown that slid off to reveal a gold lamé dress with a plunging bustier neckline. Press photos show Balmain, dressed as Louis XIV, kneeling near Greco as she flipped her jet-black hair.

Gigi Hadid’s gold Miu Miu dress at this year’s Met Gala was inspired by a gown that Balmain designed for Josephine Baker in 1951, and he anticipated the trend for naked dressing with his translucent sheath for Carroll Baker, who almost caused a riot when she wore it to the London premiere of her film “The Carpetbaggers” in 1964.

Among his memorable contributions to film were the costumes he designed for Bardot in “And God Created Woman,” cementing her sex kitten persona, and the hourglass silhouettes that Loren wore in “The Millionairess.”

While many of his peers died young — Robert Piguet in 1953, Jacques Fath in 1954, Marcel Rochas in 1955 and Dior in 1957 — Balmain remained active until his death from cancer in 1982, at the age of 68. He was succeeded by Erik Mortensen, his right hand since 1951, for haute couture and Peggy Huynh Kinh for ready-to-wear.

Reflecting on his journey in 1964, Balmain gave an insight into his complex temperament by admitting that he thrived on adversity.

“It seems that for me setbacks have always been stimulants, and it is in the midst of difficulties that I have best succeeded in fulfilling my destiny. This is so true that I have come to need problems and challenges to produce my best work. Nothing is more harmful to me than the sense of security,” he wrote in his memoir.

He also detailed his feuds with critics who dismissed his flattering designs, popular with aristocrats and ladies who lunched, as staid and conventional, especially when compared with emerging ’60s designers like Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges.

“Sometimes I regret that my character does not drive me to create an occasional horror, for I believe that the nightmare of certain models can confirm the purity of lines. But I cannot force myself to do it,” Balmain retorted.

“I believe that in our determination to uphold a certain picture of Parisian elegance, without compromise and without weakness, we have now succeeded in the establishment of a style,” he said.

– With contributions from Tonya Blazio-Licorish