Through his contacts with Marie-Amélie Sauvé and Nathalie Marrec, Ghesquière eventually landed a job doing the licensing for Paris fashion house Balenciaga and designing for the Asian market. At that time, Balenciaga had limited success since the 1970s and was owned by Groupe Jacques Bogart, whose management realized Ghesquière's talent when he designed a small collection for one of its Japanese licensees. (The label's founder, Cristóbal Balenciaga, died in 1972.) Ghesquière held, as he then described it, "what many would call the worst position in fashion," designing suits and funeral clothes under a Balenciaga licence for Japan.