Under the patronage of Madame Carla Bruni-Sarkozy the first complete retrospective exhibition about the creations made by Yves Saint Laurent is being presented at Petit Palais in Paris. The exhibition has been produced in association with the Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent Foundation.

The exhibition was opened March 11^th and will remain until August 29^th 2010. The exhibition´s designer is Nathalie Crinière.

In cooperation with the exhibition the director of Petit Palais, Gilles Chazal expresses:

“With Yves Saint Laurent we saw the Western woman free to appropriate such sartorial symbols of masculinity as the pullover, shorts, the trouser suit, the tuxedo and the leather jacket, as well as traditional items like the fisherman`s reefer coat. With his personal touch Yves Saint Laurent turned them all into haute couture”.

The workshop of this virtuous of female style was just a studio – silent, uncluttered, spotless, and drenched in light and with a mirror wall as its vital creative tool – plus an office like a Cistercian monk´s cell. His equivalent of the painter´s easel is woman and her movements: “All my dresses originate with a movement. A dress that doesn´t embody or remind you of a movement is a failure.”

His palette is all those meticulously chosen fabrics that vibrate in his hands and, when draped on the mannequin, spark life, beauty, comfort, suppleness: all the elation of femininity.

The final, dazzling high point was each new season´s collection and its “pictures”. That was when Yves Saint Laurent became fully himself.

From season to season the pictures were renewed, as they had to be. Yet Yves Saint Laurent´s real concern was not his novelty – the infinite variations of the fashion game – for its own sake. Necessary diversity apart, his quest was for ongoing refinement of his style, for those compositional essentials that optimize women´s freedom and sophistication.

The lines of force and the subtle variations of forty years of creative haute couture: These are what the Petit Palais is setting out to offer the public in this Yves Saint Laurent exhibition.

The design of the exhibition – Meticulos staging

This exhibition presents a sweeping panorama of Yves Saint Laurent´s forty years of creativity. It is organized thematically, offering of 307 haute couture and ready-to-wear garments, together with photographs, studio interior, drawings and films.

The presentation of the creations is meticulously staged, from Saint Laurent´s beginnings with Dior in 1958 – the famous “Trapez” collection – to the splendor of his evening dresses.

The development of Saint Laurent style and the fundamentals of his oeuvre are presented in a historical context illustrated with photographs and films. The sheer richness of his artistic and cultural sources of inspiration is revealed in spectacular tableaux: the first couturier to have obtained for true street wear, Saint Laurent also dressed the most sublime of women.

The exhibition closes with an apotheosis of colors and garments revealing the present-day relevance of the Saint Laurent oeuvre.

“My primary concern has always been respect for my craft, which is not exactly an art, but which depends on an artist for its existence.”

The exhibition consists of different parts:

Birth of a “revolutionary” couturier

“What was the happiest moment of your life? When I met Christian Dior”. Yves Saint Laurent

“It´s him I remember most of all. Yet I never got up the courage to call him Christian, it was always Monsieur Dior. . .He taught me the essentials”. Yves Saint Laurent

In 1955 Yves Saint Laurent joined Christian Dior, who designated him his successor. He took over when his mentor died in 1957 and effected the transition from an obsolete form of haute couture to the reign of style. !958 Saint Laurent creates the “Trapez” collection for Dior, thereby becoming, for the New York Times, a “French National Hero”. The collection heralded the desire for freedom of the 1960s, which found expression in an unfettering of the body.

Imaginary workshop/Real-life workshop: A recreation of the Avenue Marceau workshop where the couturier designed his collections.

“In the beginning is the sketch. That´s the genesis for all of us, the guide, the point of reference. Next the toile, which lets you judge, interrupt, move ahead. Then the fabric, the critical phase of daring and risk-taking. Lastly the model, which is given a trial run before joining the others as part of the collection.” Pierre Bergé

A Gender Revolution:

This space presents 43 models illustrating the Saint Laurent legends: the reefer coat, safari jacket, trouser suit, skirt suit, smock suit, tunic and jumpsuit.

Yves Saint Laurent and women:

This space presents fifteen models ordered by loyal haute couture customers, relatives and friends, including Nan Kempner, Jacqueline, Countess of Ribes, Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise.

In 1966 he launched the Saint Laurent Rive Gauche label as a fashion landmark. Accessible for many more women, the Saint Laurent style became an international byword via a network of hundreds of boutiques. This part of the collection is not shown at Petit Palais, as there will be an exhibition entirely devoted to Saint Laurent Rive Gauche at the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation during the first half of 2011.

Belle de jour: Catherine Deneuve:

This room contains 10 major pieces from the Deneuve wardrobe.

A Mythic series – Yves Saint Laurent photograhed by Jeanloup Sieff.

In 1971 Yves Saint Laurent posed nude for photographer Jeanloup Sieff as a part of the advertising for his first male parfume. Unbelievably daring at the time, the image took on iconic status. All the photographs kept by Barbara Sieff are being shown to the public for the first time.

The Enchantment of the Exotic:

Yves Saint Laurent travelled the roads of the imagination, voyaging in his mind, his workshop, his books, his houses, and among pictures and objects making up his collection

. Thus he brought genius to capturing the essential and making it accessible.

“I use my imagination on countries I don´t know. I hate travelling. If I read a book about India, with photos, or Egypt, where I´ve never been, my imagination runs away with me. That´s how I make my most marvelous voyages”. Yves Saint Laurent, conversation with Catherine Denevuve in Globe, 1
. May 1986.

Dialogue with Artists and writers:

In 1965 launched a collection inspired by Mondrian. This was the first of many regular rendezvous with the world of art, in what he called his “dialogues”: Mondrian, Wesselman, Poliakoff, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Léger, Apollinaire, Aragon, Cocteau, Lalanne and others. These artists helped him invent a new, highly personal language.

The last ball:

“What is a dress? A summons, the gatway to a kingdom, a dance melody, detachment – it´s not about to abandon its aloofness – and a form of sovereignty.” Erik Orsenna.

Yves Saint Laurent loves the atmosphere of celebrations, loves the night zone outside time and reality. He is a magician of the night. The last ball is a succession of dresses from haute couture nostalgic for its past glory.

“It´s not that couture is dead, but rather that the places for wearing it don’t exist anymore.” Pierre Bergé

The balls given by Baron de Redé and the Rothschilds now belong to the distant past. 68 models are on show in this room, including a yellow faille e Chine domino and a black velvet and lace sheath dress (1983), a coat made of gazar and white ostrich feathers, and a white satin dress (2001).

This is followed by The Dark Star:

“For a woman the tuxedo is indispensable: she will feel permanently in fashion because it is a style item, not a fashion one. Fashion changes, but style remains.” Yves Saint Laurent

Before leaving, the visitor moves through the world of colours of Yves Yves Saint Laurent. Surrounded by walls covered with hundreds of fabric samples, the draped muslin dresses from his last parade in 2002 seem miraculously suspended in space.

At the very end if the vista gleams the Heart brooch, a talisman Yves Saint Laurent treasured and which he put on a dress in every one of his parades, like a good luck charm.

Pierre Bergé was overseen the curating of the exhibition. The curators are: Florence Müller, Farid Chenoune, Gillez Chazal and Charles Villeneuve de Janti. The exhibition designer is Nathalie Crinière.