PARIS – For Yves Saint Laurent, florals weren’t only for spring.
A brand new exhibition opening on the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris on Friday reveals that flowers have been a mainstay of the late couturier’s collections, from his first outing after he took over as artistic director of Christian Dior in 1958 to his final collections in 2021.
“The Flowers of Yves Saint Laurent” is the companion to the exhibition that bowed in March on the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakesh, Morocco, marking the primary time the 2 establishments have joined forces on a present.
“It’s a fairly magical theme to know Yves Saint Laurent. Why? As a result of in the end, to have a look at the flowers of Yves Saint Laurent is to know his life,” stated Elsa Janssen, director of the Paris museum.
The designer and his companion Pierre Bergé have been at all times surrounded by flowers and gardens, whether or not of their flats in Paris, their secondary properties in France and Morocco, or their trend home. This ardour for nature was additionally mirrored of their collections of furnishings and artwork, together with work by Édouard Vuillard and Henri Matisse.
To mark the opening of the exhibition, the Paris museum’s entrance was adorned with a colourful association incorporating sunflowers and chrysanthemums by florist Baptiste Pitou, who was in command of the ornate backdrops for Saint Laurent’s runway reveals.
Gaël Mamine, who curated the exhibition with trend historian Olivier Saillard, famous that whereas the Marrakesh present used black backdrops to spotlight the daring colours of the designs, the Paris leg was knowledgeable by the intimacy of the couture atelier and Saint Laurent’s enduring love for the writing of Marcel Proust.
“Marrakech was a backyard for Saint Laurent the place he may recharge his batteries and work, and right here within the trend home that’s open to the general public immediately, we wished to signify the connection between the designer and his fashions, assistants and all of the individuals who helped put collectively the collections,” Mamine stated.
Set designer Claudia Huidobro imagined a clean web page backdrop dotted with book-shaped shows printed with quotes from Proust, by which the writer describes ladies utilizing floral metaphors.
A view of the “The Flowers of Yves Saint Laurent” exhibition.
Courtesy of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum
Choosing which clothes to show was a fragile train, with prints and embroideries of lilies, poppies, roses and bougainvillea competing for consideration.
“It’s about telling the story in such a method that you simply see a good looking backyard, and never a horrible busy mess, so it’s actually a query of steadiness,” Huidobro stated.
It was a possibility to drag rarely-seen designs from the archives, together with a black sleeveless column costume with utilized 3-D embroidery from Saint Laurent’s first assortment beneath his personal identify in 1962, famous Serena Bucalo-Mussely, curator and head of collections on the Yves Saint Laurent Museum.
He steadily paid tribute to Dior by that includes his mentor’s fortunate flower, the lily of the valley, in his designs. In a neat bookend, the blossom seems on a 1958 straw boater and an embroidered silk organdy shirt from 2001, showcased facet by facet.
Dotted among the many richly patterned clothes are stylized paper flowers by Joséphine Pinton. The exhibition additionally options two works by U.S. artist Sam Falls, whereas the catalog is enriched with images by Sarah Braeck juxtaposing the garments with patterned backdrops.
Whereas the exhibit showcases a wealthy number of materials and methods, from printed silks from the now-defunct Swiss textile producer Abraham to embroideries by specialists Lesage and Hurel, it additionally consists of sketches and equipment, together with a galvanized copper headpiece by Claude Lalanne, produced for a 1981 assortment.
After which there may be arguably Saint Laurent’s most memorable floral confection, the rose-covered bikini with a diaphanous pink practice worn by Laetitia Casta for the finale of his spring 1999 high fashion present. “The Flowers of Yves Saint Laurent” runs till Might 4, 2025.
A view of the “The Flowers of Yves Saint Laurent” exhibition.
Courtesy of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum