Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris closes temporarily for renovations

The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris has temporarily closed for the main renovations, even when the museum has begun to organize an event program outside the site, especially in Arles.

“The museum is now entering a phase of architectural transformation,” said the museum in a statement.

During its first seven years in operation, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris has welcomed almost a million visitors and has shown more than 2,000 works. Located in the old haute couture house in 5 Avenue Marceau, the museum protects the great study of Couturier, with testimony of the creative genius of Yves Saint Laurent. It also regularly assembles unique thematic exhibitions, with many issues in the wide creativity of Saint Laurent.

Madison Cox, president of the Fondation Pierre Bergé, Saint Laurent, has designated Seldorf Architects, based in New York, and the study of Paris, La Boétie, to direct the museum's renewal.

The international renowned architect, Annabelle Seldorf, is known for projects such as the Frick collection in New York, Luma Arles and the renewal of the Sainsbury wing in the National Gallery of London.

After renewal, the museum's surface will double and become more accessible to the public, while allowing access to iconic spaces, such as Pierre Bergé's office, a lifelong partner of Saint Laurent.

The project will also optimize the conservation conditions of the museum's collection, thanks to the permanent relocation of its reserves to a location outside the site. It will also create a new documentation and research center, designed to allow researchers, academics, fashion historians and students to privileged access to the extraordinary archive of Yves Saint Laurent.

The updated museum is scheduled to reopen in the fall of 2027.

During the renewal work, as of July 7, the Museum will organize a special exhibition, Yves Saint Laurent and Photography, in Rencontres D'Arles, the main annual festival of photography in the world.

Commissioned by Simon Baker in collaboration with Elsa Janssen, this exhibition will highlight the special relationship of Saint Laurent with photography and the great photographers of the twentieth century. A part will feature the fashion images of Saint Laurent and the iconic portraits of Couturier, with about 80 works by renowned photographers such as Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and William Klein.

A second, designed as a curiosities cabinet, will present almost 300 file objects: contact sheets, catalogs, magazines and personal photographs, illustrating the central role of photography in the work of Saint Laurent and inside his haute couture home.