Behind every Yves Saint Laurent silhouette stands a photographer. This is the intuition explored by the International Center of Photography in New York, which is dedicating an exhibition until the end of September to how photographic imagery has shaped the very identity of the fashion house over four decades. More than a promotional tool, photography emerges as a raw material of style.
Gian Paolo Barbieri, Creations from the Spring/Summer 1988 SAINT LAURENT Left Bank collection worn by Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell. Images used for the catalog of the collection © Gian Paolo Barbieri, Courtesy Fondazione Gian Paolo Barbieri © Yves Saint Laurent
We think we know Yves Saint Laurent through his dresses; here we rediscover him through his images. Throughout his career, the couturier maintained a rich dialogue with the greatest photographers of his time, names that alone suffice to compose a history of 20th-century photography. Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Annie Leibovitz, William Klein, and Andy Warhol: more than three hundred pieces bring their perspectives together around a single subject, this fashion house that redesigned women's wardrobes.
The exhibition embraces both chronology and intimacy. The first section traces the evolution of the designers' creations through portraits and fashion photographs, from the striking Yves Saint Laurent captured by Irving Penn in 1957 to that of Patrick Demarchelier in 2004, from William Klein's experiments in the early 1960s to the backstage moments of fashion shows captured by Bettina Rheims some twenty years later. Each photograph is a landmark, but the collection as a whole reveals a constant: the meticulous care with which a designer has constructed their own image.
The second section delves into the archives, and it is perhaps here that the exhibition's beating heart lies. More than two hundred objects from the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris—contact sheets, advertising notebooks, campaign catalogs, press clippings, and personal photographs—reveal the inner workings of the creative process. Here, we see how Saint Laurent grasped the medium's dual power: its documentary capacity, which captures for eternity what would otherwise remain ephemeral, and its power to elevate, which transforms clothing into icons. Photography did not simply record fashion; it inspired it in turn, and as we peruse these documents, we sense a designer who conceived his collections in images as much as in fabrics.
What the exhibition reveals is also the most audacious dimension of the approach. For Saint Laurent, the objective was a risky undertaking, a way to push the boundaries of what was acceptable, particularly regarding gender roles and expectations. Reinterpreting traditionally masculine garments—tuxedo, pantsuit, trench coat—to redefine the women's wardrobe only took on its full meaning once the images were published in magazines. The house's photographs accompanied, and sometimes even anticipated, broader transformations: new presentations of the body, innovative advertising strategies, and responses to youth movements and globalization. Fashion, in this light, reveals itself as an integral part of a cultural shift.
Harry Meerson, Yves Saint Laurent1966 © Harry Meerson
Organized in collaboration with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris and the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent, the exhibition extends the ICP's long-standing commitment to fashion photography. With understated elegance, it reminds us that the legacy of a brand and its founder was largely sealed in the grain of a film. Seeing the silhouette of an evening gown silhouetted against the light in Dominique Issermann's lens, one understands that at Saint Laurent, the image didn't follow the creation: it was an integral part of it.
Practical information
Yves Saint Laurent and Photography
International Center of Photography, 84 Ludlow Street, New York
The 11 28 September 2026 June
Curator: Simon Baker, Nastasia Alberti and Clémentine Cuinet
