Oh Paris

At first glance, it’s been glitzy business as usual on the Paris fashion scene this month as the Fall/Winter ready-to-wear collections took over the runways at Paris Fashion Week. But alongside the flurry of minimalist 1950′s vintage-inspired looks by designers such as Louis Vuitton on display at the shows, a mood of mournful reverence entered the mix as two separate events brought back to life the work of couture masters Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen.

McQueen, a British designer who died on February 11th at the age of 40 after taking his own life, left behind a last collection that was shown at Paris Fashion Week to an extremely selective group of around 70 fellow designers and professionals. The young designer’s penchant for bold, experimental colors, textures and patterns drawn from distant eras and cultures showed up in his unfinished collection, which is said to be inspired by Byzantine art, religious icons like angels and scenes of heaven, but is also inhabited by his trademark irreverent touches like skullheads and crocodile patterns. Many of the looks were left unfinished, which reportedly contributed to the gloomy ambiance at the private showings. The McQueen house has said it would continue to release collections under the deceased creator’s name.

Meanwhile, the museum at the Petit Palais in Paris celebrated the opening of a retrospective on legendary French designer St. Laurent (also known as YSL) as the ready-to-wear events were wrapping this week. The exhibit, which is the first large-scale retrospective of YSL’s work and was curated in close cooperation with Pierre Bergé, the designer’s longtime partner in both life and business, highlights 300 key creations from YSL, who died two years ago at the age of 71.

“I hope this exhibit will allow as many people as possible to discover or get to know better Yves Saint Laurent’s work,” Pierre Bergé said in a statement. The exhibit is a landmark event for the world of couture: it marks the first time one of Paris’ state-owned museums has consecrated a retrospective to a fashion designer, Petit Palais Director Gilles Chazal underlined. “Why Yves Saint Laurent? Because YSL is more than a fashion designer: he is an exceptional artist whose work can be placed within the long string of monographic exhibits [that have been held at the Petit Palais]“, he said.

It looks like YSL has achieved what few fashion designers have: broken through the rigid convention that has traditionally separated “fine arts” from other forms of artistic creation considered less worthy of being curated.

Exhibit: Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective

When: March 11th-August 29th
Where: Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris
Avenue Winston Churchill, 8th arrondissement
Metro: Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau or Concorde

Image: Yves Saint Laurent in 1969. ©The Estate of Jeanloup Sieff.

Paris Fashion World Reveres Lost Talents YSL and McQueen originally appeared on About.com Paris Travel on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 10:08:14.

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