MILAN — Sofia Bertolli Balestra, artistic director of the Balestra house, is launching an international call to action.
Introducing the “In Search of Balestra” initiative, she is inviting customers and collectors around the world to help her discover, find and chart Balestra couture gowns.
Bertolli Balestra, granddaughter of the late couturier Renato Balestra, joined the family business in 2010, after graduating in letters and journalism from Università la Sapienza in Rome, specializing in contemporary art and piling up experiences in the art and fashion fields across Rome, London and New York.
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She has been building the brand’s archive, which includes more than 40,000 sketches and drawings, hundreds of gowns, videos and newspaper articles, and was declared of historical interest by the Italian Ministry of Culture in 2019.
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Underscoring the importance of authenticity in today’s fashion scenario, Bertolli Balestra said she was “looking for historical garments, to revive them and to raise awareness of the origins of an unmistakable style.” Each garment “will tell a story and will be a cornerstone for the future of the brand,” she said, highlighting the forward-looking approach and staying away from nostalgia.
“The value is not in the garment per se but in its history in time. With their distinctive elements and stories, each dress will put the Balestra codes back at the center.”
Renato Balestra is known for his exquisite couture gowns, signature painterly embroidery, blend of different fabrics and transparencies, and even a distinctive color — Balestra blue.
Garments can be signaled on the balestraroma.com site and can be donated. “The responders will become an active part of the discovery and evolution of the brand and will be officially recognized,” Bertolli Balestra said. She enthused about the first contacts made, tracing for example an heirloom, a Balestra pure silk wedding dress with a tag also citing Holt Renfrew from 1968 and found in Montreal. “I would like to stage the garments in an exhibition at the end of the initiative,” Bertolli Balestra said.
The couturier opened his first atelier in Rome in 1959, where the company is still based, after an apprenticeship with Jole Veneziani and working for the likes of Emilio Schubert, Maria Antonelli and Sorelle Fontana.
Born into a family of architects and engineers, he stood out for his artistic spirit and was defined as the “painter of fashion.”
His strong passion for cinema led him to design costumes for Ava Gardner in “The Barefoot Contessa” and “The Sun Also Rises”; for Gina Lollobrigida in “Beautiful but Dangerous”; for Sophia Loren in “Lucky to Be a Woman,” and for Candice Bergen in “The Adventurers,” among others, becoming a favorite of other movie stars including Elizabeth Taylor, Claudia Cardinale and Carroll Baker, to name a few.
He designed exclusive collections for Isetan in Tokyo as well as Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Foley’s, Neiman Marcus and Lord & Taylor.
In 1970, he included men’s looks in a women’s fashion show — a pioneer in creating unisex collections on coed catwalks, underscored his granddaughter.
Balestra died in 2022 at age 98.