Madison Cox: "Yves Saint Laurent was a silent amateur who maintained an ongoing dialogue with the artists"

On January 29, 1962, Yves Saint Laurent, 25, presented the first parade of his legendary fashion house."A historical morning," we then wrote in Le Figaro.The love story between the designer and the women has continued for forty years, marking the heritage of fashion ... and art.The exhibition "Yves Saint Laurent at museums" celebrates the 60th anniversary of these illustrious beginnings by deploying until May 15, 2022, in an unprecedented format, in six Parisian museums: the Center Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art Deparis,The Louvre museum, the Musée d'Orsay, the Picasso Museum and the Yves Saint Laurent Paris Museum.This vast exchange of influences requested intuition, selection and sharing.Interview with Madison Cox.

LE FIGARO.- How was this exhibition project that celebrates 60 years of creation was born from 1962 to 2022?Why compare the work of Yves Saint Laurent and the permanent collections of the great Parisian museums?

Madison COX. - Nous tenions à valoriser les deux mondes, leurs collections autant que les nôtres. Et ainsi faire redécouvrir les collections permanentes de cinq grands musées parisiens dans un dialogue avec la haute couture d’Yves Saint Laurent. Ce projet, nous l’espérons, y attirera un nouveau public, celui des amateurs de mode, et fera découvrir l’œuvre du couturier aux fidèles des musées comme aux générations de ce XXIe siècle qui ne l’ont pas connu. Les grandes monographies «Thierry Mugler» et «Dior» à Paris ont démontré que la mode capte un large public et le conduit en douceur vers le musée. Sans doute parce que c’est une création moins intimidante qu’un grand peintre comme Anselm Kiefer.

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Was Yves Saint Laurent frequented museums?

He frequented some for a long time in Paris, the Rodin museum, the Louvre, the decorative arts, carnavalet ... But, he ended up giving up, failing to find a certain tranquility necessary for art. People recognized him, challenged him: "Are you Yves Saint Laurent? My mother loves you very much. " Or: "Oh, I didn't like your last collection." Or again: "What are the fashionable colors this year? Will the skirts be long or short? ” In the absence of museums, he consulted a lot of catalogs and art books. If you know his workshop (staying as it is and open to the public, at the Yves Saint Laurent Paris museum, editor's note), you have necessarily seen that there were only works of art behind his chair. He was a silent amateur who had a continuous dialogue with Picasso, Matisse or Mondrian. He was not a great traveler like Pierre Bergé was. He never set foot in India when this country was a great source of inspiration for him. Same observation with China ... with the exception of a round trip Paris-Pékin to inaugurate an exhibition. But he had the chance to parade in a museum, to have it for himself on his own during his last presence in haute couture. She took place in Beaubourg, in the metamorphosed forum on January 22, 2002, in front of more than 2,000 guests for her farewell in fashion. It was raining. However, there were as many people outside in the snow and the cold who looked at the parade on a giant screen, deployed on the facade. A great moment that the Center Pompidou will revive on February 10 thanks to a free projection in its cinema.

Why present these 50 haute couture pieces in a refined, almost minimalist scenography?

It is a question of emphasizing the relationship to art, of changing context, not to repeat the same scenario of fashion as it has already been done and redone on a model, with the shoes, the small bag, thehat.All these accessories, important for the history of fashion and our archives, inevitably date an outfit.It’s something else here.Presenting the Mondrian dress alongside an iconic Mondrian brings out the news of its lines, their eternal purity.

Is it difficult to show these pieces in a museum that does not have the conditions for preserving a textile arts museum?

This is the big question.We have been working on this dimension for more than six months.There is the problem of mites, light ... To present works in textiles, exposure to light should not exceed 50 lux.In most of the rooms of the different institutions, it was therefore necessary to modify the brightness.In the gallery of Apollo at the Louvre which is crossed by natural light, the pieces are exposed under the window, as are all the objects, the jewelry, the cameras, the crystals.At the Musée d'Orsay, we originally wanted to present the clothes that refer to lunch on the grass of Manet and Monet.The light conditions do not allow it, we finally built a camel in the room of the large clock.

What does the designer share with the great artists of this journey?

Yves Saint Laurent has often been reduced to its fragility, but it takes a lot of courage to question and constantly rework its creation by targeting perfection. At the end of the life of Yves Saint Laurent, some criticized him for redoing again and again such a jacket or such shoulder. But he worked like a painter, who takes up and reinterprets his patterns and his compositions. We have often opposed his role to that of Pierre Bergé, as if that of the designer was less harsh. It is to disregard the horrors of the creator. It is a great pressure that pure creation! Heavy responsibilities weighed on his shoulders as soon as he succeeded in 1957, overnight, to Christian Dior, disappeared suddenly. He was only 21 years old. He had 25, on December 4, 1961, when he founded, with Pierre Bergé, his fashion house. What a demanding mission to create something from anything, when hundreds of people, in workshops and shops, were waiting for "that" to come out.

Almost fourteen years after his death, he remains the archetype of the early creator.Today, as soon as an emerging stylist shows talent, he is said to be "the new Saint Laurent" ...

Yves Saint Laurent still holds a special place.By its precocity.By the fact that he was one of the first whose name was generally known.It was and remains a phenomenon.

What is the place of Paris in his work?

It is fundamental. We must not forget that he was born in 1936 in Algeria, in Oran. Paris represented, in his eyes, freedom when he wanted to escape from the environment in which he had grown up. The chance of life made it in class with François Catroux (1936-2020, decorator and husband of Betty Catroux, muse of Saint Laurent, editor's note). Saint Laurent - François told him - was cruelly mocked by his comrades. In this difficult context, he discovered Paris through the fashion magazines to which his mother was subscribed and which arrived late. In 1949, he attended a representation of the Molière women's school mounted by Louis Jouvet, in Christian Bérard's sets and costumes. Immediately, he was inspired by his "illustrious little theater" of cardboard characters. He also created a wardrobe for these paper dolls, in the fabrics of the early 1950s. Behind it shone his fantasy of Paris, where he never stopped wanting to go ... in turn, he ended up embody Paris abroad. In addition to the pharaonic site of inventory of his work, our mission is to have its heritage and its history shine. Even if you are not passionate about fashion, his career as a young man from Algeria, landing in Paris in an environment so far from his, is a source of inspiration for all those in search of horizons.

He helped make Paris inseparable from fashion ...

But not only, you always have to open the whole fields, as he did, so young.Before his generation, the designers belonged to a closed world of high couture clients.Saint Laurent arrived after the war, in the late 1950s, participated in this youth explosion which occurred in Paris, London and New York.To the rise of music, plastic arts.Fashion opens to so many other areas.

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Does this deployment in six museums participate in this founding found in Paris whose cultural life is currently sparkling?

As a American, I confirm it to you!What Paris is now a cultural level is remarkable.Paris was a lighthouse for Saint Laurent in Oran in the early 1950s, as it was for many artists, such as Christo fleeing Bulgaria whose dream was to live there and work there.Even today, for a lot of young people, the lighthouse in the night is not San Francisco and the Silicon Valley ... but Paris.

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