At Yves Saint Laurent, “Gold” is slim

parisdiaFashion1 Comment

Embroidered cocktail jacket autumn-winter 1988, with flowers by Goossens, Evening ensemble autumn- winter 1993, long evening ensemble autumn-winter 1995, bolero jacket embroidered by Lesage

When Pierre Bergé was still alive, he always had fabulous ideas for the Yves Saint Laurent Museum and we saw, a few years ago,  extraordinary exhibitions of Moroccan jewelry and David Hockney’s first iPad drawings in 2010. Now it gets harder to be fascinating with just the collections of couture even though they are fabulous. “Gold, Les Ors d’Yves Saint Laurent” is a pretty theme and if you watch closely you find early amazing jewelry by Claude Lalanne, and contemporary sculptures, “Sunbursts”, by Johan Creten. But the sophisticated show is very slim and many visitors who had queued for fifteen minutes in the rain were disappointed…

Johan Creten, “3 Double Sunbursts and 3 Sunbursts on the wall, curtesy Creten studio and Perrotin

“I like gold buttons. I believe they serve as a woman’s daytime jewelry. I use lots of gold buttons on black and navy blue coats”. This is how modest the introduction to the show is with three jackets (including a smoking), followed by showcases with gold boots and gloves, hats and Claude Lalanne’s strange sculptures. Then come the dresses from the swinging sixties, with gold leggings and Margot Fonteyn or the Duchess of Windsor’s model dresses. Twiggy, the streets of London, are all about showing your legs.

Claude Lalanne’s jewelry for Saint Laurent, Autumn-Winter 1969-1970

There is a gallery with jewel dresses where the illusion of encrusted stones is total. And the show ends with two car coats (paletot), a tribute to Jean Cocteau and Louis Aragon from 1980. As I said, the exhibition is very thin but if you have never seen the studio and salons of avenue Marceau , you will enjoy the short visit.

Long Evening dress, Autumn-Winter 1966, Mrs Thomas (Nan) Kempner’s model dress, is reminiscent of Cleopatra

GOLD at Musée Yves Saint Laurent, 5 avenue Marceau. Until May 14.

Share this Post

One Comment on “At Yves Saint Laurent, “Gold” is slim”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *