If you love clothing design, don’t delay. The Yves Saint Laurent show at the Seattle Art Museum ends Jan. 8.
The exhibition — The Perfection of Style — showcases highlights from the legendary designer’s 44-year career. The exhibit underscores and celebrates the fact that this sort of design is fine art, too.
Saint Laurent died in 2008 at age 71, leaving behind a collection of haute couture and prete-a-porter — high fashion and ready-to-wear styles.
The SAM show includes 100 YSL garments, photos of the designer as a celebrity, hundreds of sketches — some from his days as a young assistant to Christian Dior, fabric boards and even some paper dolls he made when he was a teenager.
The classic lines of his mid-century modern day wear and evening dresses led to his beatnik designs and safari jackets, his bohemian looks and modular wardrobe of the 1970s. His tuxedo suit for women was a first.
Unlike many other French designers, Saint Laurent wanted women to be comfortable in their elegant clothing.
A brown wool ready-to-wear coat from his autumn-winter 1976 Rive Gauche collection (No. 47 in the exhibit) should be recognizable to many people in the baby-boom generation. Also recognizable are outfits worn in various movies.
He also enjoyed paying homage to artists, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and modern artist Piet Mondrian — with his 1965 wool jersey cocktail dress with panels of ivory, red, blue and yellow fabric divided by black lines. (No. 68).
One room of the exhibit focuses on the interesting process of hat making.
Most of the rest of the exhibition centers on Saint Laurent’s fabulous, colorful evening gowns, primarily from the haute couture collection.
In the early 1980s, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City honored Saint Laurent with a solo exhibition. He officially retired in 2002, but various books and documentary films and exhibits, such as the one at the Seattle Art Museum, keep his perfected styles alive.
“The holidays will be a fun time to see the exhibition,” said Rachel Eggers, museum spokeswoman.
If you go
“Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style”
Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave.; 206-654-3100; www.seattleartmuseum.org.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesdays through Mondays, and until 9 p.m. on Thursdays. Closed Tuesdays. The museum closes at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve and is closed Christmas Day.
Admission is free to SAM members and children, $24.95 for adults, $22.95 for seniors and military with ID, $14.95 for teens and college students with ID.
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