Fashion moments, too. Tonight, March 13, Saillard will bring a historic event back to life with Répertoire n°1: Yves Saint Laurent 1971, The Scandal Collection, starring Paloma Picasso, whose personal style inspired that show.
“When she first told me about it, I felt almost like I was reliving the moment,” Saillard said. “I thought, here is a collection inspired by war, and the name Paloma symbolizes peace. There was something in all of that that I find very joyful.”
Speaking from Switzerland, Picasso declined to disclose details about her appearance but shared some thoughts on her style then and now. For one, Scandal backlash took her completely by surprise.
“The press was so negative, I couldn’t understand why it would be so horrible,” she said. Not having lived through the war myself but having seen [pictures and films of] all those gorgeous creatures—glamour to its maximum—I thought that’s what I wanted to emulate. I saw it as something positive that French women were using dress as an act of resistance, a reaction to actually dress as fabulously as they could.”
She also shared that her signature red lipstick actually dates back to her first day of preschool. “I was three years old, my mother said, okay, now you’re all dressed up, you can go to school,” Picasso recalled. “And I said, ‘But you didn’t put lipstick on me. When you go out you wear lipstick, so I have to wear lipstick—I’m going out.’And I had a fit, crying, ‘Well, I’m going to be ridiculous if I go without lipstick.’” Gamely, her mother, Françoise Gilot, complied and never asked how the look went over at school.
On Yves Saint Laurent choosing her as a muse: “You don’t decide somebody is your muse just because of what they are,” Picasso said. “It’s because they do something different, because they evoke something special to you.” Once she started getting serious about designing jewelry, her style shifted yet again, defined by those red lips and, most often, black. “I found that I didn’t want the clothes to take away from my jewelry,” she said. “I’ve managed to steer people’s view of me through what I’ve created myself. And that, I suppose, has been my great victory.”
Photo: Ruediger Glatz/ Courtesy of The Cartier Foundation