Yves Saint Laurent openly pulled inspirations from his surroundings but nothing inspired him more enthusiastically then Marrakesh. This is the city where he discovered playful colour combinations, light, draping and caftans. Here he and his business and life partner, Pierre Bergé, resided in many homes- the most notable named Villa Oasis, where Saint Laurent sketched some of his most memorable work.
In October 2017, a state of the art fashion museum, Musee Marrakesh, will be honouring the great french designer and his infatuation with Marrakesh. The new 43,000 square-foot building designed by the Paris-Based firm Studio KO will display thousands of garments and accessories that have been selected by Pierre Bergé. The exhibition will house iconic pieces such as Le Smoking and the safari jacket, but will focus mostly on Saint Laurents’ Marrakesh inspired pieces. Not only will this museum home the works of YSL, but will also pay homage to the designer with 130 seat auditorium, a boutique and bookshop, a french leaning cafe and restaurant as well as a research library comprising 5,000 volumes.
“Here, we wanted to explore the spectacular and fantasy side of the work,” says Madison Cox, vp of the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent and director of the Jardin Marjorelle. Confections like a scarlet faille couture cape embroidered with purple and hot-pink bougainvillea and an African-inspired beaded minidress from the 1967 Bambara haute-couture collection will hang in the permanent exhibition hall. Elsewhere, original scenography incorporating “floating voices, quotes, images and film snippets” by the French architect and set designer Christophe Martin will add a sense of “magic,” says the museum director Bjorn Dahlstrom.
The opening of the museum in Marrakesh will coincide with the new Yves Saint Laurent museum in Paris, the former fashion house and current headquarters of the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent.