Portrait of Yves Saint Laurent (1964)
Photo: Maurice Hogenboom ©Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent

Legendary fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent will be subject of another museum exhibition, slated to bring 100 haute couture garments to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) next fall.

“Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style” will draw from the collection of the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, showcasing highlights from Saint Laurent’s 44-year career, including new acquisitions that will be making their public debut on the west coast.

Long evening ensemble inspired by Picasso.
Photo: © Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent.

Kimerly Rorschach, SAM director and CEO said in a statement that the show “will reveal the man behind the artist and how he embodied the vibrant times in which he lived,” She continued, “There is no other fashion designer of his time who had the far-ranging impact that he did.”

Currently, the UK’s Bowes Museum is home to “Yves Saint Laurent: Style is Eternal,” the country’s first museum show on the designer. The exhibition’s 50 pieces cover Saint Laurent’s days at Christian Dior as well clothing from his legendary label.

Short cocktail dress, which is a tribute to Mondrian.
Photo: © Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent.

“Yves Saint Laurent was the first living couturier to be given a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983, curated by Diana Vreeland. More than 30 years later, this exhibition presented at the Seattle Art Museum is further evidence of the continuing influence of his work on today’s fashion,” noted Pierre Bergé, the Fondation’s president, in a statement.

Of course, there is more and more overlap between the fashion and art world, even as we approach the end of the Takashi Murakami/Louis Vuitton era.

Fashion designers are becoming notable art collectors, and there always seems to be a new artist/designer collaboration, such as Rob Pruitt jeans and jacket line at Barneys, or Ai Weiwei‘s disastrous V Magazine fashion editorial.

“Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style” will be on view at the Seattle Art Museum, October 11, 2016–January 17, 2017, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, May 7–August 26, 2017.

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