After all, he was the only fashion designer who envisaged his clothing, within his own lifetime, as museum exhibits – from the middle of the 1980s, the couturier would write the word “Musée” on the labels of various garments, in his slightly shaky hand, a flourish to the ‘s’, denoting which garments from the collection should be preserved for posterity, reserved for the then-hypothetical museum in his name. It is exactly what Saint Laurent would have wanted. A pair of Warhol portraits of Saint Laurent stand sentinel over a settee in the same fabric, overstuffed so that it resembles a ripe vegetable. Below, two salons on the first floor have been decorated with a facsimile of the house’s original decor – parchment-coloured walls, milky-crystal chandeliers, heavy brassica-green damask drapes. Saint Laurent’s studio has been painstakingly reconstructed, with rolls of fabric, swatches of embroideries and trays of buttons and bibelots, gathering dust. Despite the renovations, walking through the glass double doors and Second Empire stucco architraves is like walking back in time. Clothes are kept in every nook and cranny, in spaces formerly occupied by the ateliers that produced Saint Laurent’s superlative tailoring and grand evening dresses, but also in the staff canteen under the eaves, and a building next door that housed administration.
The archives of Yves Saint Laurent – arguably the greatest fashion designer of the late 20th century – are contained within the Napoleon III hôtel particulier that formerly housed his maison de couture, at 5 avenue Marceau, Paris.
0 kommentar(er)
