Rosie Scott Blog about Women

It caused so much outrage among fashionistas in Paris and such fierce criticism from the press that Yves Saint Laurent had to take a break to let the scandal pass before he could present a new collection.

Now there’s an opportunity to revisit the outrage, courtesy of the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation’s 1971 “The Scandal Collection,” a retrospective of the infamous Spring/Summer 1971 “Liberation” show that shocked Paris and the fashion world.

It was a retro “Forties” collection inspired by square shoulders, short draped dresses, knee-length skirts, platform shoes and exaggerated makeup worn by some women during the Nazi Occupation of Paris, and it enraged the public, whose memories of those dark days only 25 years earlier were still very much alive in the early 1970s.

The press, according to Olivier Saillard, the curator of the foundation’s exhibition, considered Saint Laurent the legitimate heir to the great tradition of French haute couture. That’s why they couldn’t forgive him for the reminder of years of deprivation and restriction through which most of them had lived. Their articles unanimously condemned Saint Laurent’s perceived ‘fashion faux pas’.

“Part of the public did not conceal their aversion and expressed their horror before the spectacle of a collection they deemed hideous,” Saillard writes. “They were primarily disturbed by the couturier’s claims that he was inspired by the elegance of the war years and the Occupation.”

The “ugliest collection in Paris” nevertheless gave way to a retro trend that quickly became popular around the world.

“The 1971 collection’s fault wasn’t these references to the material deprivations of the Occupation,” the fashion publication Icon Icon writes. “It didn’t recall the typical wartime wardrobe; it was altogether another story. Composed of more luxurious, more gaudy clothing, it was what was worn by women who resigned themselves to collaborating with the occupiers in a very ‘horizontal’ way. During the Liberation, these infamous women’s heads were forcibly shaved for having ‘slept with the Germans.’ ”

Through images, sketches and the original pieces for the “Libération/Quarante,” the Scandal Collection explores why it triggered a scandal and, in the words of the curator, “caused fashion to come crashing into contemporary history.”

To answer the critics, Saint Laurent said: “What do I want? To shock people, to force them to think.”

The Scandal Collection is credited with bringing down the walls separating haute couture from ready-to-wear and to have marked a shift in Saint Laurent’s trajectory. “It was the manifesto of a designer who now wanted to be the arbiter of ambiguity,” Saillard writes.

In an interview at the time, Saint Laurent said: “I don’t care if my pleated or draped dresses evoke the 1940s for cultivated fashion people. What’s important is that young girls who have never known this fashion want to wear them.”

The Scandal Collection exhibition runs from March 19 to July 19.

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