Saint Laurent did all this with clothing that was eminently wearable. He said, “It pains me physically to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic, by fashion... What is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.” The fashion editor Diana Vreeland noted the inevitable result of this care for comfort on the part of the greatest clothing designer of the twentieth century. “Whatever he does,” she said, “women of all ages, from all over the world, follow.”
Multicolor feather coat, chiffon dress with tiger print. Fall-Winter 1990.
Foundation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent.
The notion of fine arts museums showing fashion and other “design” is controversial — at least among certain offended critics attempting to hold to some rigid notion of the difference between “fine art” and whatever else there is — but there are many such exhibitions now. This Saint Laurent show precedes another exhibition entitled “Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique,” originally mounted at the Cleveland Museum of Art, that will open in San Francisco’s Legion of Honor later this year. “Bedazzled: 5,000 Years of Jewelry,” is currently on view at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. An exhibition of Paul Poiret’s designs and clothing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2007 drew large crowds to view an extraordinary artistic temperament. The Costume Institute at The Met houses one of the greatest collections of the history of fashion in the world. Its exhibition a few years ago, “Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century”, caused a critical and public sensation.
Yves Saint Laurent and models, 1972
Many critics question the value of fashion design and fashion itself as real art. They see the current museum interest in such things as pandering to a public consciousness rather than a strictly artistic one. Fashion is artisan craftsmanship, perhaps of a high order, but it is not art. It is self-serving in its pursuit of riches. It dresses shallow, rich women in clothing that costs way too much and is of little value after the ball is over - and so, we must look down our noses at it.
Similar criticisms were once leveled at architecture, printmaking, jazz, the movies, tapestry art, rock and roll, tango, novels, and many other forms by the same sort of aghast critics, offended by what they saw as a cheapening of the artistic consciousness. Those art forms are all quite publicly accepted as real art now, and the criticisms have quieted significantly, if not gone away. I believe that the same slow demise will befall the brickbats now being hurled at museums that dare to show haute couture, especially if more shows like this by Saint Laurent are mounted.
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