Parisians don't often mount fashion exhibitions, but when they do ... Karl Treacy recommends three summer shows in the French capital
For a city that elevates fabric and fashion into an art form, Paris rarely stages fashion exhibitions. But those in need of a fashion history fix have had their appetites sated this summer with three great shows.
The big draw at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile on rue de Rivoli (part of the Louvre complex) is the retrospective of the Italian-born couturière Elsa Schiaparelli. The exhibition showcases the work of one of the 20th century's most influential fashion figures. Schiaparelli, who was Chanel's great rival, rose to fame on the back of some hand-knitted sweaters with trompe l'oeil motifs, and a selection of those are here. But what really sealed her place in history was her association with Surrealism, and her audacious and provocative sense of colour and embellishment.
Playful pieces from her Circus Collection, with marching elephants and acrobats swinging across jackets, vie for attention with a colourful harlequin coat and elaborate bustle-back dresses with thick plastic zips. But then there are the divine dresses: pintucks raked across bouquet-printed georgette; eau-de-nil watermarked silk tied low on the hips with an orange velvet sash; a famous Dali lobster dress worn by the Duchess of Windsor; a trompe l'oeil Tear dress; and an evening coat with Cocteau-designed Surrealist vase erupting with ribbon roses.
It's easy to see Schiaparelli's daring and playful spirit as the inspiration for many of our contemporary designers. Butterfly prints re-emerged in the work of the late Gianni Versace, a gold mesh snood was lifted by Alexander McQueen for Givenchy, and echoes of Galliano are everywhere. But one designer more than any other drank from Schiaparelli's font of ideas: Yves Saint Laurent.
SAINT Laurent retired in 2002, and the headquarters of his couture house has been preserved at 5 avenue Marceau, where the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Fondation (Bergé is Saint Laurent's long-term business partner) has been established to conserve the archives, mount exhibitions and support cultural and educational activities.
The summer show, Dialogue avec l'Art, examines the impact of 20th-century art on the couturier's work. Forty-two models, on winding white display paths, illustrate Saint Laurent's preoccupation with the fine arts, from tubular Pop Art dresses to a selection of the famous Mondrian dresses from 1965, with real Mondrians hanging alongside. The 1967 controversial African Collection is here - with its wood beads, passementerie, luscious fringing and openwork bodices - as are a Matisse peasant blouse and the spirit of Picasso in appliquéd full skirts.
This glitzy, Baroque exhibition - just a small selection of Saint Laurent's output - ends tomorrow, but returns in September for two months. One can also try to gain access to the actual couture archives on site, though this is by special request only, well in advance.
AROUND the corner from YSL is Paris's all-too-often overlooked fashion museum, the Musée Galliera. It has opened a selection of its extensive archives for a small exhibition called Ouverture pour Inventaire, running until August 8th, next Sunday. In fact, it's too small, because it's a perfect jewel that makes you greedy for more.
Laid out like a huge walk-in wardrobe, the exhibition consists of a miscellany of fashion objects in no chronological order. It's a merchandising concept increasingly familiar, pioneered by stores such as Paris fashion emporium Colette. It's a delight to see early Martin Margiela alongside 18th-century men's embroidered waistcoats, and 1920s evening coats of metallic silk damask and solid bugle beading.
The clean layout of white walls with black trompe l'oeil detailing helps to temper the effect of pre-Revolutionary dresses with enormous padded hips, and brings out the faultlessness of a collection of micro-pleated and draped goddess dresses by Mme Grès.
Here is a fashion exhibition without any pretension, that caters for children as well as for the type of grown-ups who always wanted to know what a speckled tulle guimpe is. There's also the frustration that you'll never have wardrobes to display clothing as beautifully as this.