On the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, the Museum of Textiles Foundation, in collaboration with the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation in Paris, announces the exhibition Alaïa and Balenciaga. Sculptors of form, a special exhibition project dedicated to two absolute icons of French fashion, for the first time in Italy in October. 

Born in 2020 from Hubert de Givenchy's desire to bring together two historic talents of French haute couture, the exhibition - curated by Olivier Saillard and presented at the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation in 2020 - arrives for the first time in Italy at the Museum of Prato, comparing the creativity of the two designers thanks to a core of fifty garments from the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation with original documents and videos from the Balenciaga Archive.

Twenty-five creations by Azzedine Alaïa (1935-2017) - considered one of the last couturiers, capable of mastering every phase of creating a garment, from design to tailoring - converse with as many pieces by the great Cristobal Balenciaga (1895-1972), in a timeless comparison between two highly skilled experimenters of shapes and volumes. Among the exhibited garments, to mention a few examples, Alaïa's spencer from the Fall/Winter 1986 Couture collection, inspired by Balenciaga's Haute Couture jacket from 1938, or the boleros from the Fall/Winter 1986 and 1989 collections that recall Balenciaga's Haute Couture 1940 bolero.

When the Maison Balenciaga definitively closed in 1968, the emerging young designer Alaïa was called by Mademoiselle Renée - who had spent several decades at the Maison as deputy general manager - to choose a selection of the Master's creations, because only his hands would have been able to rework and renew them, without betraying them.