We had a guide/driver for a day in Marrakech and he brought us to Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech (mYSLm).
Concurrent with the opening of Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Paris (Av. Marceau), the Foundation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent created this museum in 2017 with the Foundation Jardin Majorelle.
A retrospective movie Yves Saint Laurent was made in 2014. Here is the soundtrack, it has a few opera favorites and nice quiet piano pieces.
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The main hall of the museum (photos not allowed) shows a retrospective featuring 50 pieces representative of the essential work of YSL from 1962 to 2002 including the pea coat (1962), the Mondrian dress (1965), “le smoking” tuxedo suit (1966) and the safari jacket (1967).
He designed clothes for women that borrowed from a masculine wardrobe, “avoiding the fashion of the moment and give them more self-confidence”. Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Adjani wore his designs in various movies.
The museum also has a space for temporary exhibition, an auditorium where we saw a short documentary film, a cafe and a bookshop.
YSL was trained at the House of Dior and in 1957, he found himself, at age 21, the head designer after Christian Dior died of a heart attack in his fifties.
In 1961, he opened YSL couture house with Pierre Bergé in Paris.
Les Quatre Saison (The Four Seasons) posters by YSL in 1983.
In 1970, YSL designed the first in a series of greeting cards with the word “Love” in poster form that he would send his friends, collaborators, and clients annually until 2007.
The YSL museum is adjacent to the Jardin Majorelle which was saved from demolition by Pierre Bergé and YSL in 1980. The garden (English link here), also opened to the public, was designed by the French artist, Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962) in 1923. Jacques Majorelle commissioned the architect, Paul Sinoir, to design a Cubist villa for the property in 1931. I included a copyright-free photo below because it was impossible to take a picture due to overcrowding.
YSL was born in 1936 in Oran, Algeria and seemed to have a great affinity for north Africa. He and Bergé collected over 600 traditional North African objects and a Berber Museum (Le Musée Berbère, linked here) was created in 2011, which houses their collection.
Majorelle was a celebrated Orientalist painter, and a special shade of cobalt blue was used extensively in the garden and its buildings which is named after him, bleu Majorelle –Majorelle Blue. Everywhere in the garden, the blue is contrasted with almost-neon lemony yellow and deep vermilion-orange.
The garden offers a series of walkways at different levels among the boldly-colored buildings. There is a large collection of cactus, all perfectly laid out and beautifully managed.
The garden was extremely popular and it was packed with tourists. There was even an Asian couple taking bridal pictures. I cannot imagine the crowds during peak tourist season.
YSL and Bergé were a couple but they split amicably in 1976 and remained lifelong friends and business partners.
Just before YSL died in 2008 of brain cancer, Bergé married YSL. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Jardin Majorelle. Bergé died in 2017.
