Sir Cecil Beaton 1904-1980

Cecil Beaton is one of the most celebrated and distinguished British portrait photographers of the twentieth century and someone who's creativity and drive I have admired throughout my life.

An accomplished illustrator, painter, writer, costume and set designer, he is renowned for his portraits of well known faces from the worlds of fashion, literature, film and royalty. His long and varied career and his ability to attune himself to changing fashions enabled him to capture a diverse range of subjects on camera.

Marlene Dietrich - Cecil Beaton 1935

Beaton had a lifelong passion for the theatre, inspired by the plays he attended and the actresses he met in his childhood. He directed sets and costumes for 12 films and numerous plays, and his own play The Gainsborough Girls was performed at the Theatre Royal in Brighton in 1951. He first visited Hollywood in 1929 and returned many times over the years to capture the glamour of the big screen stars.

Audrey Hepburn, My Fair Lady - Cecil Beaton 1963

Amongst the celebrities captured by his camera, are fashion designers Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli and , artists Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, screen beauties Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman, ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev and rock star Mick Jagger.

Cristóbal Balenciaga, Paris - Cecil Beaton 1962

Beaton’s career as a fashion photographer grew naturally out of his work as a society portraitist and flourished under the patronage of Vogue, first in London and Paris and by 1929, New York.

Vogue - Cecil Beaton 1954

The success he achieved in the 1930s reached its height when he was summoned to Buckingham Palace in 1939 to photograph Princess Elizabeth. The event was a great success in itself, with praise in the press for the photographs, but also the starting point for Beaton to become the Royal photographer of choice. It was he who photographed Princess Elizabeth in her uniform of Honorary Colonel of the Grenadier Guards in 1942, he who was chosen to record her coronation in 1953 and later the wedding of Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones.

Princess Elizabeth - Cecil Beaton March1945

In 1940 Beaton was appointed as an official photographer for the Ministry of Information. The portraits that he took at the time in themselves extended his range, beyond the glamorous and the grand to children and old men whom Beaton portrayed with clarity and sensitivity. In September 1940, Life carried Beaton’s portrait of three-year-old Blitz victim Eileen Dunne on its front cover.

Eileen Dunne in The Hospital for Sick Children - Cecil Beaton1940

Beaton remained in high demand as a photographer, but was keen to expand his practice beyond, and began to work as a costume and set designer on projects such as The Grass Harp (1952). A year later, he enrolled in a course at the Slade School of Fine Art, which allowed him to improve his painting and drawing. By the mid-1950s Beaton had firmly established himself within the field.

Artwork by Cecil Beaton, fashion designs and figure studies for - Jemma; The Divine

In 1963 Beaton met Kin (Kinmoit Hoitsma), a former Olympic fencer and a man thirty years his junior with whom he became romantically involved. His personal story is long and complicated, in some areas coloured by other people's judgment of him and he often found himself experiencing a sense of shame for his feelings.

Nevertheless, he was a talented man who left behind a wonderful legacy that influenced fashion photographers, portrait photographers and photojournalists alike. Beaton was not only influential to his contemporaries, but to his successors. Many of his photographs exude a timeless quality that could still grace a magazine cover today.

British Vogue September 1950, London-Paris Collection, cover by Cecil Beaton

Between 1955 to 1972 he earned many honours, awards and medals for his work. He published six volumes of his diaries while he was alive and was knighted in 1972. However, by the end of the 1970s, Beaton's health had faded and he passed away 18th January, 1980 just four days after his 76th birthday.

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Now if you know of a movie with more glamerous costumes than these, please let me know! Anyone who has ever sewn a stitch, should be able to appreciate the amount of work that went into producing each one of them, and hopefully you might find some inspiration.

Ascot Scene from My Fair Lady by Cecil Beaton

SEE IT COME TO LIFE

in perfect monotone with gowns and millinery to die for!

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I hope you have enjoyed this post as much as I did putting it together.

Big hugs,

X

Balenciaga - The Spanish Master of Fashion

Next month, my daughter and I are off to Bendigo, to view the "Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion" exhibition on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Having already seen the Chanel and Dior collections as well as the Krystyna Campbell-Petty Fashion Gift, we are both extremely excited to see this collection and can hardly wait.

The V&A holds the largest collection of Balenciaga garments and hats in the UK. Many pieces were sourced for the Museum by society photographer Cecil Beaton (scroll down to the end), who used his contacts to assemble a prestigious collection of 20th century couture. This exhibition examines the work and legacy of the influential Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, with over 100 pieces crafted by him, his protégées and contemporary fashion designers working in the same innovative tradition.

Known as 'the master' of haute couture, Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895 – 1972) was a true fashion innovator and he radically altered the fashionable silhouette of women in the mid-twentieth century. With the methodical skill of an expert tailor, he created garments of fluidity and grace. Unlike many couturiers, Balenciaga was able to drape, cut and fit his own muslin patterns, known as toiles. His designs embraced women of all shapes, sizes and age. His clothes skimmed, rather than hugged a woman’s curves, which allowed comfort and full range of movement. He was respected throughout the fashion world for both his knowledge of technique, construction and his unflinching perfectionism.

Cristobal Balenciaga photographed by Boris Lipnitzki, circa 1927.

A woman has no need to be perfect or even beautiful to wear my dresses.

The dress will do all that for her.

Cristóbal Balenciaga

Balenciaga orange coat, Paris, 1954

Balenciaga alone is a couturier in the truest sense of the word.

Only he is capable of cutting material, assembling a creation and sewing it by hand,

the others are simply fashion designers.

Coco Chanel

Silk taffeta evening gown by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Paris, 1954

Haute couture is like an orchestra whose conductor is Balenciaga.

We other couturiers are the musicians and we follow the direction he gives.

Christian Dior

My favourite photo: Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn wearing a coat by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Paris 1950

The House of Balenciaga is still alive today, under yet another new creative director, (and there have been quite a few) but in my opinion, none who have followed in Cristóbal Balenciaga's footsteps have rarely done him or the House of Balenciaga justice . . . there will only ever be one 'Master'.

Cape dress by Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga, Paris Autumn-Winter 2006

Silk evening cape by Cristobal Balenciaga, Paris 1963

Comparing the two previous photos, I cannot see anything original about the design of the Ghesquiere cape, apart from the choice of fabric. Oscar de la Renta and Hubert de Givenchy have also been seen to be following 'the master' with whom they apprenticed.

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Cecil Beaton:
Although best known as a photographer, he was also a fabulous illustrator and designer for stage and film.

Along with Edith Head (whose collection we saw in 2017), Beaton is one of my favourite costume designers. His designs for productions such as My Fair Lady were absolutely stunning, especially with the millinery featured in the Ascot scene.

Both My Fair Lady (1956) and Gigi (1958), defined the glamorous look of the era, as well as winning him three Oscars for costume and art direction.