CRISTÓBAL PERSUASION

Though the title of Mary Blume's slim biography of grand couturier Cristobal Balenciaga—The Master of Us All (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)—is taken from Christian Dior's appraisal of his colleague, the book's perspective derives from a less celebrated source, Balenciaga's top saleswoman, Florette Chelot. Blume's extensive interviews with Chelot, who stayed with Balenciaga from his first collection, in 1937, to his last, in 1968, yield fresh material about an enigmatic man whose creations— such as "the pillbox," "the sack," and "the baby-doll"—are still imitated today, even if his reclusive self-effacement is not. Balenciaga cultists will delight in such character-revealing minutiae as the designer's technique for stirring up impeccable martinis (blot the ice first), his habit of wearing a hairnet to relax his curls, and his maniacal penchant for re-pinning sleeves. Blume's needle's-eye portrait nearly supports Hubert de Givenchy's conviction that his mentor was "a perfect man" and almost renders plausible Diana Vreeland's claim that the novel beauty of a Balenciaga show so overpowered her "it was possible to blow up and die."

AMY FINE COLLINS