0000 Yves Saint Laurent: Still 'Smoking' After All These Years Exhibit
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here comes the early images from the exhibition....love the black & white set up
, wish if i can be there....
, i must go someday..
check the article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/04/reports/Rysl.php
, wish if i can be there.... , i must go someday..check the article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/04/reports/Rysl.php
I had a chance to go a bit closer when i was in Paris on 5 july morning (to be precise). As a journalist, i made an appointment with YSL fondation to go upclose and personal for a potential feature "preview". I was led by a staff curator to the salon first where was the place Saint Laurent used to receive his couture clients for fitting and chitchat, then we went upstairs where the atelier was, it was small, and all the table and little bits and bobs are still there, when i look to my left.... there they were, some of the "le smoking" were on the rack, being ready for this exhibition. Mr.Curator R told me abt this "le smoking" exhibition, and asked if i'd heard of the death of Nan Kempner, apparently, I didn't read the paper while in Paris. Then, he showed me all the intricate details on all pieces, I was told to wear gloves b4 touching anything, in case of my sweat (and tears) on any "art pieces", which have never been and never will be altered since the last show, even if they are broken or unrepairable, bcos the fondation does their best to maintain the original ideas/ version of Saint Laurent, and surely would by no way that be re-produced, I was moved by the effort & spirit that they have to preserve all the art pieces- i should call them. Mr Curator R worked for LVMH before heading to the Fondation, simply bcos he love art and fashion, and the YSL Fondation clearly was the only choice available. Saint Laurent was, is, and always will be beloved by the French and most of us here... be "le smoking" last forever ever after....
http://www.vogue.co.uk/vogue_daily/story/story.asp?stid=29491&date=&sid=
Paul Smith in Paul Smith, at Yves Saint Laurent's dinner in Paris last night, above; Pauline Smith, in a Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking suit, at the dinner, below
CHEZ YVES SAINT LAURENT
Pierre Berge hosted an exclusive Paris Fashion Week dinner for Yves Saint Laurent to celebrate the launch of the new Smoking Forever exhibition. Paul Smith, who attended the dinner with his wife Pauline, gives his account of the evening:
"We felt incredibly honoured to be invited as there were only 80 guests and it was very much Yves Saint Laurent's inner circle. My wife Pauline and I had made a special request to sit on the same table as we don't like to be split up and also on our table were Lulu de la Falaise, Hedi Slimane and Jean Newton. Hedi is obviously very close to Yves Saint Laurent - he said that they still regard themselves as family having got to know each other when Hedi was designing menswear at YSL before the Ford era. Saint Laurent himself was sitting between Madame Rochas and Catherine Deneuve.
We didn't find out the reason for our invite until we arrived last night. It turns out that when the Yves Saint Laurent couture house closed in 2002, I bought Pauline the last ever Le Smoking suit to be made. It was particularly exciting because the one she chose from the archives back then was the first ensemble of the 45 in the exhibition – and she was wearing it last night too. When you went along to choose your suit, they allowed you to look through the entire house archive and Pauline chose this one from 1966, the year we met, so it was all very romantic. (I wore a bespoke suit from our headquarters in Westbourne House for the dinner).
We arrived to look around the exhibition at 7.45. It was in the old headquarters at Avenue Marceau, 5, and as you walk up the stairs you are greeted by this amazing Helmut Newton photograph of Saint Laurent and Deneuve. Dinner was scheduled to begin at 8.30, so gradually people like Lulu de la Falaise, Betty Catroux, Madame Rochas and Jean Newton began to arrive. It was all incredibly friendly and we were introduced to Mr Saint Laurent and to Lulu for the first time. I already knew Jean Newton so it was lovely to see her again.
We ate caviar and blinis with beautiful vodka, followed by some delicious lamb that had been cooked for seven hours, and then three tiny desserts – a chocolate, a vanilla and a caramel. There was lots of amazing red wine and Champagne (I have to admit to feeling a little hungover today).
We were lucky to be on Hedi's table because he and I had lots to talk about. I knew he is very involved with the music industry, as am I, and at one point we were talking across the table to each other and the others on the table asked if we were talking a different language – they didn't know Franz Ferdinand or The Hives, both of whom we have both worked with.
When I was 21 I was lucky enough to get to see the Yves Saint Laurent show when he shocked everybody with the first transparent shirt. His team obviously knew that we'd been there and a few people said there were Paul Smith fans in the Yves Saint Laurent camp, which was very flattering. They were really complimentary and well informed and, having initially been a bit bewildered by the invitation, we were really honoured to be there.
The exhibition is in two rooms with a huge black and white checked floor and mannequins placed on black plinths. It is incredibly well lit, as black is difficult to light well, and it was incredible to see the clothes – even for someone with my experience of tailoring, the detail and quality of these is really extraordinary. It is really a delightful sight.
One highlight of the evening was Hedi telling me that he used to creep into my fashion shows without a ticket when he was starting out. It was extraordinary to hear that, and very flattering."
Smoking Forever opens tomorrow at Avenue Marceau, 5, Paris.
(October 4 2005, PM)
Paul Smith in Paul Smith, at Yves Saint Laurent's dinner in Paris last night, above; Pauline Smith, in a Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking suit, at the dinner, below
CHEZ YVES SAINT LAURENT
"We felt incredibly honoured to be invited as there were only 80 guests and it was very much Yves Saint Laurent's inner circle. My wife Pauline and I had made a special request to sit on the same table as we don't like to be split up and also on our table were Lulu de la Falaise, Hedi Slimane and Jean Newton. Hedi is obviously very close to Yves Saint Laurent - he said that they still regard themselves as family having got to know each other when Hedi was designing menswear at YSL before the Ford era. Saint Laurent himself was sitting between Madame Rochas and Catherine Deneuve.
We didn't find out the reason for our invite until we arrived last night. It turns out that when the Yves Saint Laurent couture house closed in 2002, I bought Pauline the last ever Le Smoking suit to be made. It was particularly exciting because the one she chose from the archives back then was the first ensemble of the 45 in the exhibition – and she was wearing it last night too. When you went along to choose your suit, they allowed you to look through the entire house archive and Pauline chose this one from 1966, the year we met, so it was all very romantic. (I wore a bespoke suit from our headquarters in Westbourne House for the dinner).
We arrived to look around the exhibition at 7.45. It was in the old headquarters at Avenue Marceau, 5, and as you walk up the stairs you are greeted by this amazing Helmut Newton photograph of Saint Laurent and Deneuve. Dinner was scheduled to begin at 8.30, so gradually people like Lulu de la Falaise, Betty Catroux, Madame Rochas and Jean Newton began to arrive. It was all incredibly friendly and we were introduced to Mr Saint Laurent and to Lulu for the first time. I already knew Jean Newton so it was lovely to see her again.
We ate caviar and blinis with beautiful vodka, followed by some delicious lamb that had been cooked for seven hours, and then three tiny desserts – a chocolate, a vanilla and a caramel. There was lots of amazing red wine and Champagne (I have to admit to feeling a little hungover today).
We were lucky to be on Hedi's table because he and I had lots to talk about. I knew he is very involved with the music industry, as am I, and at one point we were talking across the table to each other and the others on the table asked if we were talking a different language – they didn't know Franz Ferdinand or The Hives, both of whom we have both worked with.
When I was 21 I was lucky enough to get to see the Yves Saint Laurent show when he shocked everybody with the first transparent shirt. His team obviously knew that we'd been there and a few people said there were Paul Smith fans in the Yves Saint Laurent camp, which was very flattering. They were really complimentary and well informed and, having initially been a bit bewildered by the invitation, we were really honoured to be there.
The exhibition is in two rooms with a huge black and white checked floor and mannequins placed on black plinths. It is incredibly well lit, as black is difficult to light well, and it was incredible to see the clothes – even for someone with my experience of tailoring, the detail and quality of these is really extraordinary. It is really a delightful sight.
One highlight of the evening was Hedi telling me that he used to creep into my fashion shows without a ticket when he was starting out. It was extraordinary to hear that, and very flattering."
Smoking Forever opens tomorrow at Avenue Marceau, 5, Paris.
(October 4 2005, PM)
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ShoeLady said:
That they do, they have them in duty free in Charles De Gaulle airport
. Beautiful thread, I absolutely adore the original 'le smoking' picture soft posted...it's the image that comes to mind everytime someone mentions YSL to me
a report about the exhibition from the NY TIMES:
'Le Smoking' Style
By ERIC WILSON
Published: October 13, 2005
A visitor to the small museum at 5 Avenue Marceau founded by Yves Saint Laurent after his retirement in 2002 might wonder at the exhibition that opened last week. Could a similar show be mounted in the United States if After Hours, the national tuxedo rental agency, had kept track of its archives?
The show, "Smoking Forever," which runs until April 2006, traces a singular look, the tuxedo jacket, which defined Saint Laurent's career from its first appearance in 1966. The few dozen looks scattered about two rooms reflect the evolution of fashion during those decades.
In 1966, the year his first ready-to-wear boutique opened on the Left Bank, Mr. Saint Laurent designed "le smoking" as a pantsuit with an elongated, four-pocket tunic-length jacket. It was worn with a ruffled tuxedo blouse, a wide cummerbund and a flouncing ribbon bow. It was a look that spawned limitless varieties: with satin lapels and knee-length shorts worn with collarless blouses; with a lace bra peeking through; or with no shirt at all, all reflecting styles of the moment that raise a smile in retrospect.
In 1981 a loose wide-shouldered man's jacket over a narrow skirt formed a boyish silhouette, a perfect inverted triangle. In 1984 le smoking was an artsy black cashmere wrap worn over a turtleneck and with a turban; in 1992 it was an exotic long black velvet robe with a Mandarin-style collar. In 1995 le smoking was a trim midnight blue crepe pantsuit, an evolution in tuxedo color popularized by Giorgio Armani.
Mr. Saint Laurent once described le smoking as an article of style, and not one of fashion. "Fashions change," he said. "Style is eternal."
'Le Smoking' Style
By ERIC WILSON
Published: October 13, 2005
A visitor to the small museum at 5 Avenue Marceau founded by Yves Saint Laurent after his retirement in 2002 might wonder at the exhibition that opened last week. Could a similar show be mounted in the United States if After Hours, the national tuxedo rental agency, had kept track of its archives?
The show, "Smoking Forever," which runs until April 2006, traces a singular look, the tuxedo jacket, which defined Saint Laurent's career from its first appearance in 1966. The few dozen looks scattered about two rooms reflect the evolution of fashion during those decades.
In 1966, the year his first ready-to-wear boutique opened on the Left Bank, Mr. Saint Laurent designed "le smoking" as a pantsuit with an elongated, four-pocket tunic-length jacket. It was worn with a ruffled tuxedo blouse, a wide cummerbund and a flouncing ribbon bow. It was a look that spawned limitless varieties: with satin lapels and knee-length shorts worn with collarless blouses; with a lace bra peeking through; or with no shirt at all, all reflecting styles of the moment that raise a smile in retrospect.
In 1981 a loose wide-shouldered man's jacket over a narrow skirt formed a boyish silhouette, a perfect inverted triangle. In 1984 le smoking was an artsy black cashmere wrap worn over a turtleneck and with a turban; in 1992 it was an exotic long black velvet robe with a Mandarin-style collar. In 1995 le smoking was a trim midnight blue crepe pantsuit, an evolution in tuxedo color popularized by Giorgio Armani.
Mr. Saint Laurent once described le smoking as an article of style, and not one of fashion. "Fashions change," he said. "Style is eternal."
A LOVE AFFAIR WITH YSL
HIS muse since they met in Paris in 1968, Loulou de la Falaise can't remember what she and Yves St Laurent talked about when they first met. "We just giggled at the same things, I didn't really know him…" she says. No matter. Wearing Ossie Clark and feathers, the woman YSL would come to describe as "charm, poetry, excess, extravagance and elegance, all in one blow", struck a stylish chord. Four years later Loulou was officially on the YSL team acting as muse and designing more than 2,000 pieces for his accessories collection each year. With a wealth of advice from the designer himself (the best beauty tip he ever gave her is that a woman looks at her most beautiful with a man on her arm), Loulou attributes her own style, in part, to the fact that she is not the most gorgeous woman she knows. "Most people who develop style are not mad about their own looks," she says, "so they tend to be more adventurous with themselves. A perfect beauty – well they can just shove on a sweater and a skirt and they are alright." Today, de la Falaise lives in Paris with her husband and her 18-year-old daughter and works hard running the line of clothes and accessories that she launched two years ago at the age of 55. Having "worked like hell and played like hell" with the likes of Warhol and Halston, these days the eccentricity that wooed them all is still very much present: "I love spontaneity: turning a pair of trousers into a turban, if you can't think what to wear." And while she admits that she sees no real meaning in terms like "muse" or "icon", she readily accepts that her role in the YSL world was an important one. "A lot of the boys [designers] need to have girls - or a girl – around them, to keep a sense of reality. Just so the clothes don't become too abstract. Because otherwise you think, 'who's going to wear them'. With girls around, they always tend to put the boys' feet back on the ground."
(OCTOBER 17, 2005, AM) / from www.vogue.co.uk
(OCTOBER 17, 2005, AM) / from www.vogue.co.uk
dhclam said:A LOVE AFFAIR WITH YSLHIS muse since they met in Paris in 1968, Loulou de la Falaise can't remember what she and Yves St Laurent talked about when they first met. ".......
(OCTOBER 17, 2005, AM) / from www.vogue.co.uk
thanks for the post dhcalm
, have u been there at 5 av. Marcue?
...
dhclam said:Yes, i did, and would love to go again and again...
oh ur so lucky
.. i have to manage a trip to Paris before the end of April...i'v visited the 1st exhibition 'ART DIALOGUE' & i don't want to miss this one..but it is dissappointiong that taking photos is not allowed there so the camera flashes won't harm the clothes, i was dieing to take photos for these master pices & the charming interior
smoking forever..YSL forever..
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more pics from the exhibition from www.parismodes.tv
I loved the obvious homage that ALBER ELBAZ & HEDI SLIMAN have payed to Yves exhbtion, showing the tuxedo & the reinvented bows at once gives me the feeling that they're still working under YSL...both collections blends nicely together..
&
vogue.co.uk
&
vogue.co.uk
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visited the exhibition while in Paris and there is only one thing to say : fantastic... just wish they had more items on display
i will agree with taz on the huge effect this exhibition had on the mood of the fw0607 runways, even though i'm not sure Elbaz did the best 'smoking' re-interprentation out there..
i will agree with taz on the huge effect this exhibition had on the mood of the fw0607 runways, even though i'm not sure Elbaz did the best 'smoking' re-interprentation out there..
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