European Heritage Days
Projection of the ballet Notre-Dame de Paris by Roland Petit

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Rerun of the staging presented at the Opéra Bastille in march 2021.


For a long time, Yves Saint Laurent hesitated between fashion and show business. He finally decided to create his own couture house in 1961, but, throughout his career, he was commissioned to design costumes and sets for ballets and music-hall, plays and movies.

The exhibition « YVES SAINT LAURENT - FORMS » presents two sketches of costumes for the ballet Notre-Dame de Paris, choreographed by Roland Petit, premiered on December 11, 1965 at the Palais Garnier. For the European Heritage Days the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris invites you to discover Notre-Dame de Paris, through the filming of the ballet performed at the Opéra Bastille in March 2021.

This performance shows the costumes designed by Yves Saint Laurent in 1965, reproduced for this new staging. For Phoebus’ costume, as for those of the soldiers, the designer drew inspiration from his own haute couture collection, presented in summer 1965 and took the construction of the dresses inspired by the work of Piet Mondrian and adapts it to leotards. For the stage, the jersey was replaced by transparent tulle and the black stripes by vinyl. The arrangement of colored geometric shapes and the black that surrounds their composition also evoke the stained-glass windows of Paris Cathedral.