Pierre Alexandre Claudius Balmain was a fashion designer from France. He set up the fashion house Balmain right after World War II, in 1945. A native of the French department of Savoie, Balmain grew up in a middle-class household. Both of his parents owned businesses. He was especially influenced by his mother, who operated a fashion boutique. He was educated at a school in Chambéry and spent the weekends with his uncle in the spa town of Aix-les-Bains. He developed an interest in fashion by watching society women. He pursued an architectural degree at the École des Beaux-Arts and subsequently worked for various artists. During the war, he worked at Couturier Lucien Lelong’s fashion house, where he closely collaborated with Christian Dior. In 1945, Balmain launched his eponymous fashion house, which has since become one of the most prolific business ventures in the fashion industry. At present, it runs 16 monobrand stores, with branches in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and Milan. Pierre Balmain was an incredibly sophisticated and elegant individual. He once called the art of dressmaking “the architecture of movement”.
