December 14, 1983
Exhibition at the Met

In 1983, an exhibition devoted to Yves Saint Laurent opened at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Organized by Diana Vreeland, it was the first retrospective of a living couturier’s work.  

The Yves Saint Laurent retrospective … shows that a couturier can    also—must be—a surveyor, an outspoken individual who has not exhausted his ability to love, an illusionist, a child, an astonomer, someone naive and a genius, an occasional writer, a copier, a tamer, a promoter, and a clairvoyant. And it shows that women do not want to be forced to be just one thing, but want to be saints and harpies, lionesses and huntresses, virgins and courtesans, men, paupers and countesses, clowns and spies, calm young women under their capelines or gray felt hats, and great armchair travelers.

Hervé Guibert, Le Monde, December 8, 1983.  

Following this first retrospective, many exhibitions devoted to Yves Saint Laurent have been organized throughout the world, in such places as Beijing, Paris, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sydney, Tokyo, and Marseille.