Fashion From the Archives: How YSL made abstract art into an experience
By Madelaine Millar, Managing Editor
Photo Credits of Wikimedia Commons
For centuries, there have been garments that rose to the level of art — the sumptuous gowns of pre-revolution France, the brilliant kimonos of imperial Japan, the brocaded wedding saris of southeast Asia. Starting in the mid-nineteenth century though, a combination of factors moved the fashion industry away from the art world. The Industrial Revolution made clothing quicker, easier, and cheaper to produce; the expanding middle class created a larger market for pretty, practical clothing; and the growth of individualist values following the American and French revolutions prompted interest in clothes as a way to make an individual look attractive, rather than as wearable art. The result was close to a century of clothing that was often beautiful, but rarely an artistic masterpiece.
Featuring Tableau I, 1921| Photo Credits of Piet Mondrian
Enter Yves Saint Laurent. A sartorial prodigy who took over the house of Dior at just 21, Saint Laurent was deeply preoccupied with creating garments that elevated fashion to the level of art; he considered Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s work to be “purity in painting.” When he found his 1965 collection unsatisfactorily modern just weeks before a show, he turned to Mondrian’s work for inspiration.
Saint Laurent presented 26 designs inspired by Mondrian paintings that fall. The most recognizable are the sleeveless knee-length shifts, whose boxy fit gives the impression that they don’t just resemble paintings but actually are canvases stretched on a human body instead of a wooden frame. Razor-sharp black lines and blocks of primary color replace collarbones, hips, and waistlines. The wool jersey fabric is assembled without visible seams, which helped Saint Laurent channel the geometric precision characteristic of Mondrian’s work.
The Mondrian dress is a contradiction by nature of its very existence. Mondrian’s work intends to transcend reality by refuting it, or by simply choosing not to acknowledge its existence.
“To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual,” Mondrian said of his work. “Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man."
If Mondrian’s original works claim art is pure, austere, spiritual, and unrecognizable, Saint Laurent’s interpretation asks what it means to make that personal. Putting on the unreal in preparation for a cocktail party is an intimate way to grapple with the concepts of abstractionism and uncertainty. Looking at a painting on a wall is completely different from putting it on, feeling it surround you, and becoming part of how other people conceptualize the work. One criticism of abstract art is that it lacks a human element, making it alien and unrelatable. But what does abstract art become when displayed on an actual human? Wearing a work of art designed to be unreal, unrecognizable, and artistically pure while existing as a very real and flawed human being forces the viewer to become comfortable with embodying contradiction. As Walt Whitman once put it, “Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”
These questions and way of approaching wearable art marked a turning point, expanding the space in which designers had to play. The success of the Mondrian dress proved that an appetite existed for fashion that dug deeper than “pretty.” Look at the runway shows of Iris van Herpen, Yohji Yamamoto, Viktor and Rolf, or at the newer genre of wearable art — for an entire segment of modern designers, the goal isn’t to make the model look pretty but to display art on a human form. Although most modern YSL work is firmly commercial, Saint Laurent himself reconceptualized the possibilities for interaction with abstract art, and the impact of his Mondrian dress still ripples through the fashion world.
Composition C, 1935 by Piet Mondrian | Photo Credits of Piet Mondrian
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1929 | Photo Credits of Piet Mondrian
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