The museum has always been a place of art, culture and beauty. And now it also becomes the place to celebrate a great French cuturier, such as Yves Saint Laurent on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his first fashion show. Paris pays tribute to him with an exhibition in the most important museums of the French capital, baptised 'Yves Saint Laurent aux musées'.
Alongside the works of art, the fashion house's most iconic dresses can be admired in the coming months in the following museums:
- Musée Picasso
- Musée d'Art Moderne
- Musée d'Orsay
- Louvre
- Musée Yves Saint Laurent
- Centre Pompidou
Lots of drawings, blank canvases of models, the relationship between the couturier and art at the centre of installations in the heart of the French capital. All designed to pay homage to the creative talent of the French couturier, involving the spaces of culture par excellenceset up for the occasion as a sort of imaginary dialogue between the designer's creations and the works of art that inspired them.
Conceived and made possible by Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurentedited by President Madison Cox, by Stephan Janson and Mouna Mekourthe exhibition will present archive materials kept over the years by Bergé.
One of the most representative venues of the travelling exhibition is undoubtedly the Centre Pompidouwhere the idea that the couturier's job is to 'put art in motion' emerges best.
An example of this are the eight F/W 1965 jersey cocktail dresses, a response to Courrèges' futuristic mini-dresses, inspired by a '37 painting by Piet Mondrian, discovered by Saint Laurent in a monograph given to him by his mother, when in France the painter remained an unknown at least until '69, when he was exhibited at the Orangerie.
"Poliakoff and Mondrian taught me purity and balance," the couturier would say about it. At the Musée d'Art Moderne, it is Raoul Dufy's La Fée Electricité room that frames the satin dresses with cabans in contrasting colours from F/W 1992, at the Louvre it is the Apollo Gallery, designed by Charles Le Brun for the Sun King, which hosts among its collections of marble, enamel, cameos and semi-precious stones two gold-embroidered jackets from S/S 1980 and S/S 1990 and a crystal-covered, gold-embroidered jacket that Saint Laurent himself described as "the reflection of the sky and the sun in the ice".
Femininity, the relentless pursuit of beauty, the inspiration provided by the great artists of all times, an ongoing fascination that now makes this exhibition a heartfelt and interesting journey through the works of an artist who has marked the way of fashion in the world.
