"- What is your favourite colour?
- Black."
Last week I was in Paris. As if that wouldn't have been enough, I also got a chance to see one of my dreams come true: my eyes dived into hundreds and hundreds of lush fabrics, haute couture dresses and sketches as I attended the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris. It felt like magic! I spent over three hours lurking around the mannequins trying not to feel overwhelmed (without succeeding!) and after I got out in the real world it was like I didn't even know where I was, I was confused still under the spell of his genius.
The coup de maître, the focal point of the exhibition for me was the room of the evening gowns and the wall of smokings, but everything was organised so perfectly, that it's difficult to find any flaws in the choice of pieces they showed to the public or in the arrangement.
Yves Saint Laurent is one of my favourite designers. He was always interested in dressing a woman in such clothes that make her both look well and feel confident and powerful, without once considering what was fashionable at the moment or not. His style evolved continually throughout his 40 years of career as a designer; from being Christian Dior's assistant, to taking over the business after the Master's death, from using black as his favourite colour until discovering colour in Marrakech and becoming more and more inspired by different cultures, like the African, Russian or Arabian ones.
He made bold and controversial fashion statements dressing women in pants, creating the smoking as an alternative for the evening gown, sending dresses made of see-through fabrics to the runway and mixing colours one would have never thought possible combining, like orange and bright pink.
Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside the exhibition, so I don't have any pictures of my own to show you. I will however try in the next days to make a selection of his work and show you some of his most controversial pieces and some my favourite pieces from the exhibition. For now I'll show you some pictures published in a newspaper from the exhibition:
African inspiration
Suits
The Smoking - from 1966 to 2002
2 comments:
A fost,intr-adevar, coplesitoare aceasta retrospectiva !
Atate lucruri minunate la un loc si filmulete si poze, totul a fost gandit perfect pana la ultimul detaliu ca sa te impresioneze! Imi amintesc ca nici nu mai vroiam sa plec de acolo :)
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