It is not the first time I step into Yves Saint Laurent's headquarters located in Avenue Marceau where the designer worked for about 30 years.
The Fondation Yves Saint Laurent keeps on bringing the famous French couturier back to life. So far, the foundation jealously kept 40 years of creations of this true symbol of Parisian Haute Couture.
In 2017 the foundation became a museum owning over 5,000 clothing pieces, 15,000 accessories and several dozens of thousands of drawings, sampling boards and other documents, a collection of an incredible richness. Yves Saint Laurent is one of the few fashion designer of his time who took the precaution of archiving his work and this from the very opening of his designer house.
This winter Yves Saint Laurent brought together 50 haute couture designs inspired by India, China and Japan through the "Dreams of the Orient" exhibition.
Yves Saint Laurent was fascinated by Asian art and culture all his life. Without really leaving his studio, he worked on traditional Indian, Chinese and Japanese clothes to give live to his Haute Couture designs and fragrances.
From his first collections, he revisits sovereigns’ sumptuous coats from India (a place Mr. Saint Laurent never visited). Then, he explores the Imperial China for his fall-winter 1977 collection and the kimono in 1994, Japan being the only Asian country he visited regularly!
YSL Saint Laurent was a true connoisseur of the cultures that he was paying tribute to.
The Musée Yves Saint Laurent officially opened on October 3, 2017 in Paris.
Three letters – YSL – so synonymous now with luxury and glamour.
The former Haute Couture salon.
Rich silk brocade jackets and emperor gowns from his fall 1977 Les Chinoises collection, in fiery red floral prints or gold dragon-like scales.
Sketches by Yves Saint Laurent, part of the development of Opium perfume, circa 1977.
A man who loves his colours.
Yves Saint Laurent revisits the traditional kimono.
There’s no denying the sheer beauty of Saint Laurent’s pieces within the exhibition.
The Indian section of the exhibition.
By dressing women in Mughal prince robes and turbans adorned with a sarpech jewel that were traditionally the attire of powerful men...
... Saint Laurent was re-contextualising traditional dress and thus empowering women.
A more traditional approach.
YSL's office space which used to be covered with rolls of fabric...
YSL’s desk, and on the wall behind it, a portrait of him by Bernard Buffet, a black and white photograph of Catherine Deneuve, pictures of his beloved French bulldog Muzhik.
A masterpiece inspired by Van Gogh.
YSL was THE master of lavishing accessories.
Dozens of drawings and documents that show the process of the perfume’s design...
... for the launch of Opium in 1977.
"If I chose Opium as the name for this perfume, it is because I hoped intensely that it could - through all its incandescent powers - release the divine fluids, the magnetic waves, the heart-warming and the charming seduction that gives birth to mad love, love at first sight, fatal ecstasy when a man and a woman look at each other for the first time."
Yves Saint Laurent
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