While I was waiting for my lacrosse bag to fall onto the conveyer belt in the humid Richmond Airport, I spotted a poster for an exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts: Yves Saint Laurent: Perfection of Style. However it wasn't the museum's name that caught my eye, or even the iconic fashion name. It was the incredible gown featured in the add.
Since I had hours between games at the tournament, At 10:30 on June 17th, my surprisingly interested father and I stepped foot in this museum, and headed downstairs to the exhibit I couldn't stop thinking about since I first saw the advertisement the previous day. As soon as I entered, Saint Laurent's teenage work left me in awe as I was inspired by his "Paper Doll Couture House", followed by towering mannequins carefully dressed head to toe in iconic designs and sketches upon sketches of looks unlike the fashion I experience looking through Vogue. The second room in the exhibit also consisted of what seemed to be a never ending wall of Saint Laurent collections boards highlighting bold looks and delicate details. And onto the third room, I watched inspired movements such as the World Cup Fashion Show consisting of 3,500 incredible Saint Laurent designs, black and white films featuring Saint Laurent style, swatches of fabric
One of the most remarkable aspects I grasped from the exhibit, included the various trends that either are making a comeback, or simply never went out of style. Three styles stood out to me particularly: The lace up top in look number_, the lace up wedges in look number_, and the off the shoulder top in look number_. My friends, celebrities, and even I have worn all three of these trends and apparently fashionable women in the 1960s did as well!
Between watching the Yves Saint Laurent film I watched a couple months prior and watching garments transform from a pile of fabric to pieces held on display in a museum 50 years later, and capturing my amazement into hundreds of pictures I looked at over and over on the plain ride home, I realized this is indeed what I want to be a part of someday. I want to one day be remembered for my own inspired designs and unique ideas to the point where I inspire others the way Yves does to me. Saint Laurent goes beyond a brand, and is more so a legendary style that changed the faces of fashion in the mid 1900s and will continue to do so for many years to come, a powerful concept that reveals the unsaid importance behind the movements of the fashion industry.