Circa 1979/1980
France

Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche bolero jacket from the famous collection "Tribute to Serge de Diaghilev and his collaboration with Picasso" in 1979. Structured bolero with small shoulder pads and long sleeves in navy woolen cloth. Appliqué work of baroque patterns in blue wool felt underlined in white, directly inspired by the Parade ballet. Navy taffeta lining and branded with the famous Saint Laurent Rive Gauche Paris logo Made in France. No flaw. Excellent condition of color and conservation.

Dimensions: Equivalent French Size 36/38 Height 47 cm Shoulders 42 cm Collar 17 cm Sleeves 58 cm Chest 88 cm Waist 81 cm

In 1979, the couturier was inspired by Sergei Diaghilev’s collaboration with Pablo Picasso for the ballet Parade, which was presented at the Théâtre du Châtelet in 1917. The painter designed the set, costumes, accessories, and stage curtain, a 170 m2 canvas now held at the Musée national d’Art moderne in Paris. This collaboration attested to Diaghilev’s interest in the work of avant-garde painters, not just the painters-set designers working in the theater.

Yves Saint Laurent, cited by Laurence Benaïm. 

At the National Gallery, I saw the exhibition of the scale models of Diaghilev’s sets for his ballets. After Bakst’s Oriental influence, you could feel the shift created by the war as well as a new impulse, a spark, with Le Tricorne and Parade. My collection is based on that specific moment and constructed like a ballet. I worked off of Picasso and a softer form of cubism, harlequins, the Blue Period, the Rose Period, the Tricorne period. … Some collections, like this one, seem special to me. I feel artistic joy. … Everything has changed. The dresses are shorter, the necklines lower, the shoulders broader. … I worked with flat colors, like a painter. I’m expressing a lot of things inside me in this collection. I’m projecting what I admire in painting and literature. I’m freeing myself with haute couture. Picasso was genius in its purest form, bursting with life and candor. Picasso was not about purity. He was baroque! He not only had more than one string to his bow, but more than one bow and more than one trajectory.