While one might expect to see a show of the work of Yves Saint Laurent in a French chateau, it is definitely unexpected that it would be exhibited in a mock-French chateau on the border of Yorkshire and County Durham in the North of England. Nevertheless, this weekend marked the opening of Yves Saint Laurent: Style is Eternal at Bowes Museum in the English market town of Barnard Castle.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Bowes Museum and the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, a foundation created in 2002, after the haute couture house closed, by Pierre Bergé, Saint Laurent’s partner. “The primary mission of the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent… is the conservation and promotion of Yves Saint Laurent’s body of work,” Pierre Bergé told BoF, explaining that he has kept almost 60,000 garments, 15,000 accessories and a whopping 55,000 drawings, as well as photographs and film in an archive of the scale that “no other couture house currently possesses, [which] makes it possible to recount the forty year design history of the most important couturier of his time”.
With a title that riffs on the famous Yves Saint Laurent statement that, “Fashions fade, style is eternal,” the exhibition at Bowes presents 50 garments from the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent archive, including iconic looks from the Russian Collection, the Mondrian dresses and Le Smoking women’s tuxedo suit.
Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, July 11- October 25, Bowes Museum