by Patrizia Vacalebri
Farewell to
Renato Balestra
, dean of Roman high fashion couturiers.
He was 98 years old.
He passed away this evening in a Roman clinic, after a brief hospitalization.
The press office and his daughters, Federica and Fabiana, gave the news.
Together with their niece Sofia, they will manage the brand and the atelier in Piazza Barberini in Rome.
Born in 1924 in Trieste, but deeply rooted in the Eternal City, Balestra has the merit of having kept alive the tradition of haute couture in Rome, even in the decades in which haute couture seemed to have disappeared from the capital, sucked into the pret a porter and from fast fashion.
In the nineties Balestra tenaciously continued to show in Rome twice a year, with classic blockbuster collections for the quantity of garments, which even reached 90/100 outfits.
Balestra was at that time the ambassador of Italian high fashion to the world, with travels, presentations, exhibitions, fashion shows, on all continents.
Him up to earning the title of globetrotter of fashion.
In terms of style, he preferred classic elegance, flattering sartorial constructions for the feminine silhouette and measured embroideries.
He loved the cornflower color so much ("it looks good on blondes and brunettes" he said) that he chose it as his favorite color and included it in every fashion show, renaming it Blu Balestra.
Born into a family of architects and engineers, also a graduate in engineering, Renato Balestra had however made his debut in high fashion in the 1950s, where he described, as a quirk, that he had arrived "by chance".
"I had designed a dress for a bet with some friends - he loved to remember - and the sketch was sent without my knowledge to Milan for a competition. That design was incredibly successful, so much so that I was invited to collaborate on a haute couture collection that would in Florence".
Thus it was that Balestra's apprenticeship took place in the most important Italian tailors of the time, all in Rome: Veneziani, Sorelle Fontana and Schuberth.
And it was in the capital that Balestra decided to open his atelier in the 1960s.
The first tailor shop was in via Sistina, where it remained for decades.
Then he moved to via Boncompagni.
But after a few years he established his headquarters in a prestigious villa in via Cola di Rienzo.
In recent years, the atelier has been moved to Piazza Barberini, where Federica, Fabiana and their beloved niece Sofia work.
For two seasons, a pret-a-porter line has also been added and is presented at Milano Donna.
Many friendships with personalities from the international jet set and the entertainment world from Natalie Wood to Linda Christian, from Liz Taylor to Claudia Cardinale, from Candice Bergen and Cyd Charisse.
Among his clients, in fact, there were queens, princesses.
In fact, Balestra had become a television personality also due to his acquaintances.
Since 2001 he had participated in the "Chiambretti C'è" show on Rai2, connecting from his home, to dinner with his famous guests.
In 2010 he was in the cast of the Cuore di mamma program, also on Rai2.
Later he took part as a special correspondent in "I Recommendations" broadcast on Rai1.
At the cinema he played himself in a cameo in Vanzina's cine-panettone Vacanze di Natale a Cortina.
During his career, Balestra has received many awards and has designed the costumes for various operas, collaborating with the Belgrade Opera Theater for the costumes of Rossini's La Cenerentola, with the Verdi Theater in Trieste where he designed the costumes for Il Knight of the Rose by Strauss, he also designed the costumes for the musical Cinderella produced by Broadway-Asia Entertainment with a world tour that touched the major Asian cities up to the USA.
In the spring of 2011 you inaugurated the "Fashion is culture" exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, where the itinerary traced the fundamental stages of her prestigious career through 150 drawings and sketches.
In May 2019 the anthological exhibition in the Certosa Museum of San Martino in Naples, with over 250 dresses and sketches.
