Display Cases in Musée Yves Saint Laurent | Goppion

The Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris opened its rooms in a historic building on Avenue Marceau in 2007. The concept was conceived in 1974 when the art-loving designer founded his famous Maison, imagined his creations and collected art together with his life partner Pierre Bergé, who passed away just days after the opening. The Museum is to exhibit a collection of more than 700 works of art, including paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, etc. When the historic Maison closed in 2002, the Avenue Marceau building became home to the Foundation.

Exhibition Design

The exhibition opening in the fashion capital has been "a collection of knowledge, acknowledgment and collective consciousness". The imposing couture collection belonging to the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation now boasts some 5000 items, includes pieces created when Saint Laurent was still an assistant to Christian Dior, before becoming artistic director of his own label. In the same way clients used to enter, the visitor access is through the fashion house's famous entrance leading through some emblematic examples of the Saint Laurent heritage, such as Le Smoking, iconic trench coats, and Saharienne safari wear. The itinerary extends into legendary stage costume creations, jewelry used as accessories, and that long, inspirational dialogue opened with artists and writers from Mondrian to Picasso, from van Gogh to Proust, all examples of the man's remarkable gifts to fashion.

Display Cases

The client chose Goppion to provide display cases for its ability to create aesthetically refined, functional and durable, large-scale display cases. Goppion took on the undertaking to engineer and construct the museum's huge vertical and cabinet display cases, to protect and display the most sensitive works in the collection. The huge mural display case achieves the structural solidity and climatic stability necessary for displaying the items at the museum including prototypes, croquis sketches of clothes and accessories, fragments of fabric and material as precious as they are fragile, in a diverse and variable space that will over time be able to offer a variety of exhibition formats. The massive sliding doors give maximum functionality for the curators to have optimum use of glass and exhibition space.

The largest of the Goppion display cases has the scale and feel of an orchestral rehearsal room. The viewer is encased in its articulated, angular form giving complete immersion into the magical refinement of the Maison YSL creations. All the display cases are framed with adjustable, remote-controlled lighting, for the correct intensity, and have adjustable climate control. The cabinet display case, also with an impressive scale, is integrated within the scenery, giving the illusion of being suspended between two walls. The display is completed with A small wall-mounted "casket" which exhibits some of the more unusual YSL items on rotation, with lighting enhancement via a system of adjustable micro-spots.