Ana Balda & Maria Kublin: Balenciaga – Kublin

Balenciaga Kublin is the first dedicated study of the photographic vision of Tom Kublin and his close creative relationship with Cristóbal Balenciaga during the fashion house’s influential postwar period in Paris. Combining more than 140 rarely seen photographs and film stills, the book sheds light on how Kublin’s images helped shape the iconography of Balenciaga’s couture in the 1950s and 1960s. The book opens with a foreword by Maria Kublin and includes a detailed biography by Ana Balda, situating Kublin among the European avant-garde of his time. Additional perspectives come from Miren Vives of the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, as well as first-hand accounts from Kublin’s contemporaries, including the model Katinka Bleeker and the Italian fashion photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri, who began his career under Kublin’s guidance in Paris. A closing text by Lydia Slater, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar UK, revisits Kublin’s editorial contributions at a defining moment in the magazine’s history. This volume serves as an essential document of a photographer whose work is deeply woven into the visual legacy of twentieth-century haute couture.

Published by Thames & Hudson