YVES SAINT LAURENT
THE MUSEUM

The museum displays selected pieces from the designer’s incredibly large legacy, which also reflects an interesting piece of contemporary history. The 450 square metres in the designer’s former workplace are mainly dedicated to temporary exhibitions.

The house is divided into two atmospheres. The valuable garments and accessories naturally need to be protected. Half of the rooms are therefore dark, cool and partly equipped with display cabinets. This creates a mystical aura, which is further emphasised by elements such as mirrored floors or clothes hanging from the ceiling.

Short clips with fashion shows show the exhibited creations in motion. The creation of the current exhibition is also documented on film, and the master’s employees, models and muses also have their say.

Where no “Haute Couture” is shown, the rooms have been preserved or reproduced as closely as possible to the original: Carpet and curtains in shades of green, white stucco, decor in black and gold. Sketches, drawings, photographs, and illustrations hang here. It is easy to imagine that Saint Laurent received guests and held court in the two rooms immediately to the left of the entrance.

What we found most exciting was the elongated studio with its many working materials, which is located on the first floor. Countless fabrics, ribbons, buttons, mood boards, books and personal items take visitors back to the time when great fashion was created here. In this room, the master also examined how his designs looked on the models. Shortly before the fashion shows, he worked here under high pressure with a small team of six or seven people to finalise the collection.

WHO WAS
YVES SAINT LAURENT?

Childhood and youth

Yves Mathieu-Saint-Laurent was born on 1 August 1936 in Oran (Algeria) into a well-off family. The shy and sensitive boy was interested in his mother’s fashion magazines, literature, and theatre from an early age. At the age of 13, he saw ‘School of Women’ by Molière. The set design inspired him so much that he created his own mini theatre out of wood and cardboard – complete with scenery and costumed characters.

In 1953, he ‘founded’ his own haute couture house, the ‘Yves Mathieu Saint Laurent Haute Couture Place Vendôme’ – initially still in his mind. To do this, he not only cut up his mother’s magazines, but also secretly cut up some of her clothes… and used them to make costumes for his theatre. She probably didn’t hold it against him because when he took part in a design competition in Paris that same year – aged just 17 – and won third prize, she accompanied him to collect it. Through his father’s contacts, he met Michel de Brunhoff, the editor-in-chief of Vogue.

Beginnings at Dior and independence

After leaving school in 1954, he moved to Paris to study fashion. A year later, de Brunhoff introduced him to Christian Dior, who immediately appointed him as his assistant. In just three years, Yves Saint Laurent rose to the top of the largest “Haute Couture” house in the world at the time.

When Dior died in October 1957, Saint Laurent became the youngest head designer of all time at the age of just 21. He flew to his hometown, where he drew over 600 designs for the spring-summer collection in just two weeks. The show on 30 January 1958 ended with a standing ovation. Pierre Bergé was also present, whom the designer met for the first time a few days later at a dinner. It was the beginning of a great love affair and a lifelong personal and professional relationship.

In 1959, Saint Laurent designed costumes for a stage play for the first time, the ballet Cyrano de Bergerac. He thus continued what he had begun as a 13-year-old. This work became a second mainstay alongside “Haute Couture”.

The sixth and final collection for Dior was characterised by provocative silhouettes and dark colours. This was not well received everywhere. In the course of the Algerian conflict, Yves Saint Laurent was drafted in 1960 and soon afterwards had to undergo treatment for depression, which prompted Dior to dismiss him. When Pierre Bergé broke the news, the two decided to set up their fashionable clothes house. Bergé sold his flat in Paris, found an investor and on 4 December 1961, they opened the atelier in Rue Spontini. This was also when the iconic YSL logo was created, which still adorns the house’s fashion and accessories almost unchanged today.

Clothing for the modern woman and everyone

Saint Laurent presented his first own collection in January 1962. Caban jackets and trench coats, clothing for fishermen and soldiers, which he interpreted in a feminine way. He continued what began here throughout his career. In 1966, he launched the Tuxedo for women, at a time when women in trousers were still sometimes barred from entering restaurants in Paris… He himself says: ‘I think I did my best for the emancipation of women. I have created clothes that are perfectly suited to the 21st century.’ Also in 1966, he launched his label Saint Laurent Rive Gauche to make his fashion affordable for more people with prêt-à-porter collections.

Yves Saint Laurent and art

The autumn/winter 1965 collection heralded a ‘dialogue with art’. Bergé and Saint Laurent were avid collectors and now this passion also found its way into fashion with designs inspired by Piet Mondrian. In 1966, the couturier adapted the Pop Art movement from the USA in a very colourful collection.

Two years later, he met Andy Warhol, who became a friend and painted a portrait of him in 1972. At the same time, Bergé and Saint Laurent got to know and love Morocco. They travelled there for the first time in 1966. Here, too, it was the vibrant colours that fascinated Saint Laurent so much and certainly reminded him of his childhood in neighbouring Algeria.

In 1974, the two acquired the Dar es Saada estate, followed in 1980 by the Jardin Majorelle, the former workplace of French painter Jacques Majorelle and now a well-known tourist attraction. Yves Saint Laurent designed many of his collections here.

In the Parisian residence that Bergé and Saint Laurent bought in 1970, works by Warhol hung alongside paintings by Goya, and Géricault was displayed next to Matisse. In 1979, the designer created a collection based on Picasso’s set design for the ballet ‘Parade’.

In 1981, works by Matisse influenced his dresses for the autumn/winter collection.

In 1988, motifs from van Gogh‘s iris and sunflower paintings adorned the hats and jackets in the spring-summer collection.

So it was only logical that his last show took place in a museum. On 22 January 2002, two weeks after Yves Saint Laurent ended his career, the Centre Pompidou presented a retrospective catwalk with clothes from the 40 years of his work.

After Saint Laurent’s death in 2008, Pierre Bergé sold most of the works from the art collection – 733 in number – which were exhibited for three days at the Grand Palais Paris. He donated Francisco de Goya’s portrait of Luis María de Cistué y Martínez to the Louvre.