Museum of Lace and Fashion to host Yves Saint Laurent exhibition

The Museum of Lace and Fashion in Calais, France, is to host an exhibition dedicated to the work of French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, co-produced with the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris.

‘Yves Saint Laurent: Transparencies’ will run at the Museum of Lace and Fashion from June 24 to November 12, 2023, before moving to the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris from the beginning of 2024.

The exhibition will focus on the theme of transparency, showcasing more than sixty pieces from the Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent Foundation and the Museum of Lace and Fashion collections that highlight how much the couturier has been able “to overturn the codes of the unveiling of the female body”.

The exhibit aims to demonstrate how Yves Saint Laurent used the effects of transparency of fabrics “to propose a new, powerful, and sensual female figure,” and will feature garments covering more than four decades from the couturier alongside accessories, drawings, photographs and videos.

Highlights will include the designer’s series of short dresses from the summer of 1966, his first see-through blouse worn with the first tuxedo sets consisting of a jacket and Bermuda shorts, and his ‘Nude dress’ made entirely in transparent chiffon embellished with ostrich feathers.

The exhibition has been co-curated by Yves Saint Laurent Museum Paris’ director Elsa Janssen and head of graphic arts collections Domitille Éblé and Shazia Boucher and Anne-Claire Laronde from the Museums of Calais.

‘Yves Saint Laurent: Transparencies’ opens on June 24 at the Museum of Lace and Fashion in Calais.