Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris celebrates all things gold

The Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the couturier’s first collection with an exhibition highlighting his love affair with glitz and gold.

Swati Bhat

Yves Saint Laurent; David Bailey, Vogue Paris

The ‘Gold by Yves Saint Laurent' exhibition is open until May 14, 2022, and examines the role gold has played in the couturier’s work. It features more than forty haute couture and ready-to-wear dresses, accessories and jewellery and highlights how the colour gold has become essential to the Yves Saint Laurent silhouette.

From the very first buttons adorning his pea coats to dresses that appear entirely fashioned from gold, no collection has escaped the couturier’s “golden” touch. Saint Laurent's mastery of gold is seen throughout his use of brocade, lace, sequins, leather, and embroidery, whether through fabric, jewellery, perfume, or gold sparkles.

Saint Laurent's communiqué, “I love gold, it is a magical colour; when reflecting a woman, it’s the colour of the sun,”

The exhibition is curated by Elsa Janssen, director of the museum since March 2022, in association with the museum’s curatorial team and with the artistic collaboration of Anna Klossowski (daughter of Loulou de La Falaise and goddaughter of Yves Saint Laurent). It highlights Saint Laurent’s use of gold in a chrono-thematic journey through ornaments, fabrics and exquisite materials while celebrating how the hue has empowered women and how Saint Laurent popularised gold for women.

Yves Saint Laurent; Nicolas Mathéus

The colour gold is perceived as a sign of wealth, power, and prestige, and Saint Laurent used that symbolism to create pieces for a modern woman. The courtier showed that gold was more than about providing an aesthetic effect, he turned gold into a manifesto of feminine power. He used gold as a simple detail in a total look, such as in gold buttons, or through a play of material such as lamé, leather and brocade, or by the technique involved from braided fabrics to embroidery or quilting.

Standout looks include the jewelled dress designed from his autumn-winter 1966 collection and photographed by David Bailey, sequined dresses worn by Zizi Jeanmaire and Catherine Deneuve and a molten metal effect evening dress worn by Violeta Sanchez in the spring/summer 1981 haute couture collection. The exhibition also displays the Gypsy dress from the spring-summer 2000 haute couture collection featuring transparent fabric sprinkled with golden sparkles.

Yves Saint Laurent; Guy Marineau

There is also a section dedicated to the couturier's use of gold buttons as jewels. From the wool pea coat inspired by a sailor’s wardrobe from his spring/summer 1962 haute couture collection complete with gilded buttons that evoked the braided rope used on board ship to the autumn/winter 1966 haute couture collection where buttons were used across cocktail and evening ensembles.

Alongside Saint Laurent’s creations, the museum invited the Belgian sculptor Johan Creten to exhibit five works to showcase how gold has always inspired artists.

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Screenwear exhibition highlights short but complex history of digital fashion

With the launch of Metaverse Fashion Week in March and the array of virtual campaigns being led by brands throughout the industry, it is fair to say that digital fashion is currently at the centre of conversation.

Swati Bhat

As it continues to grow, those unfamiliar with the concept have begun to question: “Why does this relate to me?”

It is this query that curator Anne-Karlijn van Kesteren is intending to answer through a new exhibition at Design Museum Den Bosch, ‘Screenwear - Exploring Digital Fashion’, which is running from October 15 to February 26. Within the Dutch museum, each aspect of this increasingly expanding industry is explored, from its short but complex history to the importance placed on digital identities for the younger generation.

Speaking to FashionUnited, Van Kesteren said: “The starting point for the exhibition was to explore how digital fashion actually relates to the human experience, to show everything that is happening now – the fashion industry is one of the industries that is stepping up and moving digitalisation forward.”

Tribute Brand, BICA Dress, 2021 - courtesy of Design Museum Den Bosch

Fittingly, the display was kitted out solely with 60 plus screens, ranging from 50 to 75 inches or iPads, an intentional choice by Van Kesteren, who wanted visitors to view the works in their ‘natural’ form. “All screens are visible, all wires are visible, because that’s how you take in the content of digital fashion,” she said.

From hyper-realistic avatars to live streaming designers

Stepping into the exhibit, the first screen to be seen showed Shudu, a digital supermodel with scarily realistic features. Her hyper-realism already put to the forefront the lengths in which digitalisation can go, highlighting the intricacy of the work creators in this field are striving for. It is something Van Kesteren also wanted to put a spotlight on throughout the display, as she noted that those outside of the industry often have misconceptions of the elaborate skills needed. She added: “It takes a lot of time, craft and knowledge, something people often don't consider.”

A concise timeline of digital fashion is then presented, spanning from the early 1980s, when the word ‘metaverse’ was first coined, to the recent pandemic years, in which the development of the industry gained momentum. Visitors can go on to explore virtual reality pieces by the likes of The Fabricant, Hanifa and Auroboros, or utilise various interactive areas, through which it is possible to ‘wear’ a digital item via smart mirrors.

IoDF X DAZ3D, Catty 8.1, 2022 - courtesy of Design Museum Den Bosch

A fairly integral part of the exhibition was its inclusion of the gaming industry, for which digital fashion has already been present in for years, albeit with an entirely different viewpoint, as noted by Van Kesteren. Visitors can sit at a desktop and view ‘gamers’ reacting to collection launches in metaverse platforms such as Roblox or Fortnite, putting on display this already well-developed community and its ideas on this rising industry, which often tend to differ from that of the fashion crowd.

Younger designers also play a key role, with a particularly notable screen showing work by the Twitch streamer Stephy Fung, who regularly live streams herself working on her own digital fashion designs. “A lot of digital makers teach themselves, resulting in makers that stream. For their audience, they are very open in their failures and their entire process,” Van Kesteren said. “These communities find each other and they share a lot of knowledge. A lot of young makers also said they wanted a more democratic fashion scene, which is what we wanted to highlight.”

The curator further noted the importance of taking the concept beyond just fashion, as seen in a short documentary by Reblika, an initiative which created a life-like virtual Filipino girl in 2013 as a method to highlight online child sexual exploitation. The short film was located in the section of the exhibition dedicated to digital identities, which Van Kesteren said questioned “both the lack of boundaries and, at the same time, the experience of still having boundaries” in digitalisation, whether they be social or technological.

It was of further importance for her to emphasise that this particular industry was still under development, with changes and new innovations coming almost every week. This aspect could be observed in a seated area where visitors could view an online platform created by the museum, where any news from the industry could be seen, with updates to be made almost daily.

Challenges and opportunities in presenting digital fashion

Despite only beginning on the exhibition’s concept back in May, Van Kesteren said she didn’t have an initial background in digital fashion, however, noted: “I understand where it is going and where it wants to go, and where the limitations lie at this point. I think it is an interesting subject to bring to people. It’s more ingrained in your world than you may realise.”

Harriet Davey, Whowle, 2022 - courtesy of Design Museum Den Bosch

As its curator, she said she needed to develop the digital language quickly, but makers she connected with were understanding as they knew that the industry was still a new idea for outsiders. With the concept itself, Van Kesteren also recognised that this form of exhibition is something of a vastly different challenge when compared to other forms of exhibits, with a massive amount of technology and expertise needed in order to install each individual piece. While there are always challenges in setting up all types of exhibits, she noted that, in comparison to an art-centred display, the use of screens and digitalisation called for a different set of installation skills.

Technology itself is still touch-and-go, and while some elements of the exhibition only involved a quick installation, varying screen types, files and videos had often caused delays or crashed completely, ultimately requiring professional attendance.

While the exhibit has only just launched, and despite its initial hindrances, interest in taking it further afield had already been made known. Ahead of the museum’s appearance at Muscon 2022, the organisation had become aware of a number of international museums that had an interest in taking on the concept for their own locations. It comes as the subject of digital fashion continues to rise, with the metaverse said to potentially become a five trillion dollar industry by 2030, likely spurring on the increased interest in bringing the concept to new audiences.

New book claims Prince Harry turned down Prince William's effort to reconcile

London [UK], October 4: A new book reveals the shocking reason Prince Harry ignored his brother Prince William in his reconciliation efforts.

According to New York Post, in the midst of the brothers' feud, author Valentine Low claimed that one stressful moment occurred when William and his wife Kate Middleton believed a now-infamous media appearance was a "deliberate attempt to knock the Cambridges out of the headlines." William began to have concerns about the Sussexes' happiness in the royal family when Harry and Meghan Markle gave an interview to ITV during their 2019 tour of South Africa, realizing the family might be "in crisis." One of the earliest public examples of Harry and Meghan's challenges as royals was their interview with ITV for their documentary "Harry & Meghan: An African Journey." In the royal limelight, Meghan spoke candidly about her hardships as a mother and newlywed. ITV's Tom Bradby even confronted Harry about his feud with his brother, which he did not deny. "We are certainly on different paths at the moment, but I will always be there for him, as I know he will always be there for me," Prince Harry said in the documentary.

When Prince William and Kate were touring Pakistan, the interview dominated press coverage, and it unavoidably overshadowed their visit. In the book, according to The Post, William allegedly arranged a meeting with Harry, who initially agreed in the hopes of making atonement after he and Markle levelled multiple allegations against the royal family. According to the book, the Duke of Sussex changed his mind shortly after agreeing and refused the offer. When Harry asked William who he would inform about the meeting, William responded that the Prince's private secretary would need to be informed in order to put it on his calendar. The book claims that Harry preferred they not go rather than run the risk of the visit being reported in the media because he was worried William's team would tell the press about it.

According to New York Post, five months before Harry and Meghan left the royal family and moved to Canada, Prince William made the effort to mend fences with his brother.

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