NEW COUTURE MUSEUM: MUSÉE YVES SAINT LAURENT OPENS IN MARRAKESH

It’s time to go back to Marrakesh. Not because almost a year has passed, that Jessie and I went there, but also because my heart as a fashion editor just skipped a beat when I heard this: The new Yves Saint Laurent Musée in Marrakesh opened last week.

Because Yves Saint Laurent always had an extraordinary connection to Morocco, since he went there for the first time in 1966. Besides the famous blue museum “Jardin Majorelle”, which is just a stone throw away, the foundation of his life and business partner Pierre Bergé opened a new museum in Marrakesh to honor the couturier. And of course, it is a master piece of architecture and a temple for all fashion enthusiasts.

“In Morocco, I realised that the range of colours I use was that of the zelliges, zouacs, djellabas and caftans. The boldness seen since then in my work, I owe to this country, to its forceful harmonies, to its audacious combinations, to the fervour of its creativity.
This culture became mine, but I wasn’t satisfied with absorbing it;
I took, transformed and adapted it.”

YVES SAINT LAURENT, 1983

THE EXTERIOR

The museum was designed by Studio KO by the French architects Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier. The facade of the building appears as an intersection of cubes with a special appearance of bricks which create a pattern dedicated to the weft and warp of fabric of the couturier.

THE INTERIOR

But the Musée is more than just an ordinary museum, the “mYSLm” – how it is called in short – includes not only a temporary exhibition space, also a research library with over 6000 volumes, a 150-seat auditorium, a bookstore and a terrace café to stay a little while longer.

THE EXHIBITION

It isn’t just a huge retrospective featuring the essential work of Yves Saint Laurent, like the Mondrian dresses from 1965 or the famous “Le Smoking”. The new museum is a great homage to the influence of the North African heritage on Yves Saint Laurent. Because, before Marrakesh, his designs where all black. In the exhibition space you can see all of his colorful and patterned creations.

The museum shows the whole variety of clothes, with more than 5000 items of clothing, 15000 haute couture accessories and tens of thousands of sketches and art objects from the archives of Yves Saint Laurent. So bring some time, if you want to see it all.

Address: Rue Yves St Laurent, Marrakech 40000, Marokko

Photo credit: myslm