This vibrant arrangement reveals the designer’s natural and literary influences

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With homes and gardens in France and Morocco, Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé lived surrounded not only by art, antiques and fashion, but also by an abundance of flowers. “The Flowers of Yves Saint Laurent,” an exhibition at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, highlights Saint Laurent’s love of flora through more than 30 nature-inspired garments and drawings. Each section of the exhibition opens with book-shaped displays featuring quotes by Marcel Proust, the French novelist whose epic, nature-inflected magnum opus “In Search of Lost Time” inspired Yves Saint Laurent from his teenage years. Flowers bloom across the breadth of Yves Saint Laurent’s career and creations, with representations including the earliest applied embroidery on a dress from the Spring/Summer 1962 collection, the famous rose-covered summer bride bikini worn by Laetitia Casta in 1999 and prints from the Spring/Summer 2001 collection, which reference the post-impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard. Contemporary artworks by Sam Falls offer a modern dialogue with Saint Laurent’s floral inspirations. Falls uses nature as his medium and incorporates plants directly in his work, a slow process that preserves their memory in a relationship with time that also allies him with Proustian ideals.
Photo: Evening dress worn by Pattie Boyd, Autumn/Winter 1969 haute couture collection. Photograph by David Bailey from Vogue (UK)