Made to measure

>>The MMFA blurs the lines of fashion and art
with new exhibition Yves Saint Laurent

by SACHA JACKSON

In 1983, Yves Saint Laurent became the first living fashion designer to be honoured with a retrospective of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Twenty-five years later, and for the first time in Canada, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents Yves Saint Laurent, a sweeping exhibition that culls from the 40 years of his time as a designer—from his first collection in 1962 to his final in 2002.

Working alongside the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the MMFA is the first to host the exhibition, which took almost two years to curate.

SCULPTED BEAUTY: An Yves Saint Laurent /Claude Lalanne collaboration

“On both sides, it was the right moment,” says French fashion historian and guest curator Florence Müller, of the decision to bring the exhibition to Montreal. “Pierre Bergé has never done an exhibition in Montreal and their last was 20 years ago.”

For the MMFA, Muller says, “it was the idea that now fashion is considered as design and as a major form of expression in the contemporary arts. It was the moment to do something important.”

In the years between the MET’s retrospective and this one at the MMFA, fashion as art has had a meteoric rise in North America, due in no small part to the work of Yves Saint Laurent.

It’s no coincidence that the Fondation Pierre Bergé has collaborated exclusively with fine art institutions, instead of foundations like the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, or the Musée de la Mode in Paris. Bergé (Saint Laurent’s business partner from the start) and the designer himself, who retired in Morocco in 2002, want his work to be viewed in the same galleries as a Picasso or a Mondrian.

The pieces that make up the exhibition pay particular attention to the artistry of the garments as well as their historical and contemporary importance.

“What was original in the working process was that we were working closely with the curators from both Montreal and San Francisco,” Müller says. “We’ve gone through the whole collection in Paris and we considered each piece—this is not the usual way of doing it. And when I say the whole collection, I mean we looked at all 5,000 pieces. Of course, we’re sad because at one point, we had 800 pieces and we had to cut it down to 150.”

Given the designer’s prominence, especially in France, I asked Ms. Müller if Yves Saint Laurent has inspired her as a young woman. “I have a very, very strong souvenir of the dresses he made with the artist Claude Lalanne. You see the physical image, this gold bust, with muslin, and as a child, I was so impressed by this. It was one image—it’s funny, because I’ve never said this to anybody—but it’s one strong feeling that perhaps can build your passion in life. I saw it because I had an aunt who was a very elegant woman, who dressed in YSL and she had Vogue and all these magazines, I was very impressed by this woman. I saw this image and for me it was the ideal of—not luxury because this is the actual world—but an ideal of beauty and harmony.”

Yves Saint Laurent runs from
May 29–sept. 28 at the Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts
(1380 Sherbrooke w.)