Visiting the Yves Saint Laurent Museum
While recently traveling to Marrakech, Morocco, I had the opportunity to visit the infamous Yves Saint Laurent Museum and Jardin Majorelle Gardens. The true history and inspiration of the brand were drawn out throughout these gardens and within the walls of the exhibit. Once a private place housing Laurent himself, it now hosts some of the crucial elements of design seen across the brand and several of the most famous pieces to have been seen on the runway.
As many do, I began my tour within the walls of the gardens to explore and experience the most beautiful garden in Marrakech before continuing my way into the museum itself. As a brief backstory, Jardin Majorelle was originally designed by a French artist named Jacques Majorelle back in 1923. Many years later, Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Berge discovered the gardens and restored them to their natural beauty after years of struggle. Laurent had immense ties to Marrakech and was especially drawn to the vibrancy that the city had to offer. Between the colors, culture, and artwork found across Marrakech, Laurent resonated greatly with the beauty the garden had to offer and the way in which it represented the city as a whole. The flourishing flowers, bursting palm trees, and plethora of birds offer further insight into all the Jardin Majorelle Garden has to offer. Jardin Majorelle now acts as the final resting ground for Laurent after his passing in 2008 and continues to remind visitors of the significance this place had to the designer.
It goes without saying that no place better presents his legacy and therefore when a museum was called into question, there would be no better place than to be adjacent to the garden. Following our time in Jardin Majorelle, we entered the true YSL exhibit where several of the brand’s most historic pieces are housed and cared for. One aspect of the room I found incredibly interesting was the emphasis on simplicity. While several other museums tend to focus on avant-garde displays and creating abstract focal points, this showroom was far from that. The entire room was painted black, from the floors all the way up to the ceilings with simple spotlights used to highlight the collections. I found this to be genius and immediately allowed the eye to catch the details of the designs as opposed to being caught up in surrounding colors. A majority of the pieces displayed were sprawling gowns ranging from simplistic silk to dramatic details. Ruching, feathers, and large drapes were certainly taking the room by storm, making up a majority of the displayed collection. These pieces were not arranged by season or year but instead by similarity, grouping them together by themes seen across years and displaying the cyclical nature of fashion.
All in all, the collection was small but incredibly effective in showing the range of design capabilities YSL as a whole presents. Nearing the end of our time in the exhibit, we wandered into the theater to view a constant reel of timeless ads, runway clips, and the historical stories of Laurent himself. Becoming more educated on his interests, beliefs, and ways in which he viewed the fashion industry perfectly rounded out the experience. From beginning sketches to the final product, no part of the process was glazed over. All in all, if and when you find yourself in Marrakech, this is certainly an experience you don’t want to miss out on.
