A sunny day in Paris

I escaped to sunny Paris for the day to see the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the Petit Palais, the first ever retrospective featuring 40 years of his work. A magnificent journey which takes you through every memorable piece of couture he designed, I found it overwhelming and wished I had been blessed with a photographic memory. What a delight to be so close (I did touch a few times) to his magical creations. My absolute favourite was the wall of Le Smoking, featuring every possible connotation of Le Smoking designed throughout his 40 year reign at the helm at YSL.

Le Smoking

The curation and set designer were sublime, over 300 mannequins were displayed some seated as if they were the audience at a catwalk show and us the visitors, models.

The YSL audience

The exhibition also revealed a few things, a whole room dedicated to the 1971 summer collection inspired by the 1940's which was a complete disaster in the eyes of the World's press. So fabulous that they have embraced the successes and failures in his illustrious career.  My other discovery was the comic strip written and drawn by Yves Saint Laurent in 1967 called La Vilaine Lulu, a cheeky and malevolent child who comes in many guises featuring some famous icons we would all recognise. 

La Vilaine Lulu

The many faces of Lulu

I wish I had more time to see the exhibition over a few days as there was so much to take in, I left with a feeling of era overload, but happy to have seen Yves Saint Laurent's magnificent work from 1958-2002 all under one roof.