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The “Mondrian Revolution”

“Revolutionary” was how Women’s Wear Daily described the autumn-winter 1965 collection, which drew attention for its modern, avant-garde style. Its success was primarily due to a series of dresses inspired by the painters Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969) and especially Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). For its new display, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris will devote a considerable part of its exhibition space to this collection and examine its legacy beyond the history of fashion.

Paintings as Dresses

The autumn-winter 1965 haute couture collection was shown on August 6. One month earlier, despite having partially completed it, Yves Saint Laurent decided to redesign most of the collection, imbuing it with more modernity. Taking inspiration from the book Piet Mondrian, Sa vie, son œuvre (Michel Seuphor, 1956), which his mother had given him, Saint Laurent showed twenty-six designs inspired by the Dutch painter as part of the 106 designs in the fashion show. He laid the foundations for a refined aesthetic focused on simple cuts and geometric lines. These dresses would subsequently alter the connection between fashion and art by transforming a painting into an animate work of art. Switching from canvas to dress, the couturier went from blueprint to three-dimensional shape and, like an artist, created a series of variations on Mondrian’s work. Wool jersey was inlaid with no visible seams, allowing Saint Laurent to offer textile renditions of paintings and channel the Dutch painter’s sense of geometry. Mondrian himself perhaps felt this evolution coming in 1931, when he declared, “Not only does fashion accurately reflect an era, it is also one of the more direct forms of visual expression in human culture.”

A Milestone Achievement in the History of Fashion

The press was unanimous. Marie Claire noted the “dazzling youthfulness and style,” while the New York Times deemed autumn-winter 1965 “the best collection.” Harper’s Bazaar spoke of the “clothing of tomorrow” and “imperative abstraction.” By asserting his desire to confront the principal artists of modernism, Yves Saint Laurent helped to popularize the Dutch painter, who was not widely known at the time. The Mondrian dresses were so successful that they were heavily copied, especially in the United States. These iconic dresses have now become a part of popular culture and have been reinterpreted by contemporary artists, some of whose works will be exhibited as part of the display.

A Striking Collection

The Poliakoff Dresses and the “Babushka” Bride In addition to the Mondrian dresses, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris will present the history of this collection, which was also marked by dresses paying tribute to Serge Poliakoff and a stunning hand- crocheted wool wedding gown with alternating raised patterns and bows. Inspired by Russian matryoshka nesting dolls, it only revealed the model’s face. In this collection, the couturier was able to capture the spirit of his time by creating colorful designs that were graceful, modern, and meant to move.

Collaboration with Claude Lalanne

The Mondrian dresses marked the beginning of the “dialogue with art” that the couturier pursued with Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, and Pierre Bonnard. While he paid tribute to many artists in his collections, Yves Saint Laurent’s only actual collaboration with an artist was with the sculptor Claude Lalanne. They first worked together on two particularly striking gowns for autumn-winter 1969 and went on to create sculpted jewelry for his collections.
Yves Saint Laurent met the sculptors François-Xavier (1927-2008) and Claude Lalanne (b. 1925) at the end of the 1950s, while he was still working at Christian Dior. However, he and Pierre Bergé did not really discover their work until the early 1960s, during the Zoophites show at galerie J, Jeannine Restany’s art gallery. While their works are highly sought after today, they were not well known at the time. Their sculptures—marked by plant and animal imagery with a Surrealist twist—fascinated Saint Laurent and Bergé, who commissioned a bar from François-Xavier in 1965. Over the years, they acquired many pieces from the Lalannes, who became their friends. Among these pieces were a small herd of sheep called Moutons (1966) and the Oiseaux de marbre bird-shaped armchairs (1974) for the garden of their apartment on the Rue de Babylone. The couturier also asked Claude to design an impressive set of branch-shaped mirrors for their music room (1974-1985).

“Craftsmanship and Poetry”: The Imprinted Gowns from the Autumn-Winter 1969 Collection

Fifty years after the autumn-winter 1969 collection was shown, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris will feature Yves Saint Laurent and Claude Lalanne’s collaboration for his haute couture collections. For her first contribution, the sculptor made casts of one of his model’s chest and stomach. This anthropomorphic armor in galvanic copper adorned two diaphanous blue and black chiffon gowns, which were enthusiastically received: “Yves Saint Laurent’s dresses no longer seek to highlight the body itself, but the sculpted body. While he divided the experts by offering mid-calf dresses this winter, his molded evening gowns met with unanimous approval” (Paris Match, September 1, 1969). These creations shared in a new kind of fashion with their unique combination of sculpture and adornment.

Sculpted Jewelry

For the same autumn-winter 1969 collection, Claude Lalanne created finger jewelry, gilded copper mitts that were cast directly on the hand. This was the beginning of an occasional collaboration on sculpted jewelry that continued until the 1980s. For the autumn-winter 1970 collection, she created articulated torques in gilded bronze, one with lips and another bearing a butterfly with outspread wings. For the spring-summer 1971 “scandal” collection, turban adornments, belts, brooches, and necklaces in galvanic copper decorated with anemones and mandarins added to the uniqueness of these now famous designs.

A New Take on the Main Themes

For this display, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris will also be renewing the other works exhibited in the museum. The section devoted to the iconic designs conveying the quintessential Saint Laurent style—such as the tuxedo, the safari jacket, the jumpsuit, and the trench coat—will be further expanded to help visitors gain a better understanding of the timeless nature of the wardrobe created by the couturier. A new section devoted to fashion show photography will also be unveiled, exhibiting work by the photographer Claus Ohm.