by Patrizia Vacalebri
bye bye Renato Balestra, Dean of the Roman Haute Couture Couturiers. He was 98 years old. He died tonight in a Roman clinic after a short hospital stay. This was announced by the press office and his daughters Federica and Fabiana. Together with their niece Sofia they will run the brand and the atelier in Piazza Barberini in Rome.
Born in Trieste in 1924 but with deep roots in the Eternal City, Balestra has the merit of keeping alive the tradition of haute couture in Rome, even in the decades when haute couture seemed to have disappeared from the capital and in the splendor was sucked into a wearer and by fast fashion. In the nineties, Balestra stubbornly continued to show classic blockbuster collections twice a year in Rome for the crowd of garments that even reached 90/100 outfits.
Balestra was then the ambassador of Italian high fashion in the world, with trips, presentations, exhibitions, fashion shows on all continents. Right up to the title Globetrotter of Fashion. Stylistically, she preferred classic elegance, flattering tailored constructions for the female silhouette and subtle embroidery. He loved the cornflower color so much (“it suits both blondes and brunettes,” he said) that he made it his favorite color and included it in every runway show, renaming it Blu Balestra.
However, Renato Balestra, who was born into a family of architects and engineers and also had an engineering degree, had made his debut in high fashion by the 1950s, where he described as a quirk that he came “by accident”. “I had designed a dress for a bet with some friends – he recalled this fondly – and the sketch was sent to a competition in Milan without my knowledge. This design was incredibly successful, so much so that I was invited to collaborate on a haute couture collection that would be in Florence”. Thus Balestra’s apprenticeship took place with the most important Italian tailors of the time, all in Rome: Veneziani, Sorelle Fontana and Schuberth. And in the capital, in the 1960s, Balestra decided to open his workshop. The first tailoring shop was in Via Sistina, where it remained for decades. Then he moved to Via Boncompagni. But after a few years he directed his headquarters in a prestigious villa on Via Cola di Rienzo.In recent years the atelier has been moved to Piazza Barberini, where Federica, Fabiana and their beloved niece Sofia work.A ready-to-wear line has also been added for two seasons and will be presented at Milano Donna.
Many friendships with personalities from the international jet set and entertainment world from Natalie Wood to Linda Christian, from Liz Taylor to Claudia Cardinale, from Candice Bergen and Cyd Charisse. In fact, among his customers there were queens, princesses. In fact, through his acquaintances, Balestra had also become a television personality. Since 2001 he took part in the show “Chiambretti C’è” on Rai2 and connected with his famous guests for dinner from home. In 2010 he was in the cast of the Cuore di Mamma program, also on Rai2. Later he participated as a special correspondent in the program “I Recommended” on Rai1. In cinema, he played himself in a cameo in Vanzina’s cine-panettone Vacanze di Natale a Cortina.
Throughout his career, Balestra has received many awards and designed the costumes for various operas, collaborating with the Belgrade Opera Theater for the costumes of Rossini’s La Cenerentola and with the Verdi Theater in Trieste, where he designed the costumes for Il Knight of the Having designed Rose of 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 as far as the United States. In spring 2011 he opened the exhibition “Fashion is Culture” at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, where the path traced the fundamental stations of his prestigious career using 150 drawings and sketches. In May 2019 the anthological exhibition at the Certosa Museo di San Martino in Naples with over 250 dresses and sketches. The funeral will take place on Tuesday, November 29 at 12 noon at the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome.