Balenciaga and Legend

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A face-off between Cristobal Balenciaga, the legendary couturier who died in 1972, and Nicolas Ghesquiere, 35, who has taken up the flame, will be staged by the Musee de la Mode et du Textile in Paris. The museum will announce this week the upcoming show, in July 2006 the first since New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art feted the Spanish-born designer in 1973.

But the Paris show will not be as controversial as the Met's current portrayal of Coco Chanel on equal footing with Karl Lagerfeld. Nor will it be Balenciaga's original designs with the house's current "editions" or reworked vintage looks alongside. "It will be about the themes of Cristobal Balenciaga's work and their connection to the present when there is a meeting point," says Ghesquiere, who admits that at first he was both "thrilled" and "afraid" that the museum asked for his involvement.

Pamela Golbin, who is expected to curate the show, said on Monday: "We have the project and we are working very strongly for it to happen."

Ghesquiere, whose current windows at the Bon Marche department store are conceived without showing clothes, says that he will tap his contemporary art friends, who include Dominique Gonzalez- Foerster, to help stage the Paris exhibition.

"There must be vigilance about the selection of the clothes, to give a key to people who don't know Balenciaga and to give authority to the label," says Ghesquiere. "I hope it won't be too nostalgic, but about structure, imagination and what is organic to the house."

Gucci Group, Balenciaga's parent company, has given support to the exhibition and as Ghesquiere says: "It comes at the best possible moment for Balenciaga when there is so much interest and demand."