The love affair was mutual - today there’s a street named after him in the ancient quarter of the city, an entire museum dedicated to his work, and the historic Majorelle Gardens, which he and Pierre preserved, are one of the city’s most visited attractions (it’s where Anna Delvey struggled to pay the bill in Inventing Anna). Having grown up in neighbouring Algeria, Morocco became somewhat of a spiritual homeland for the couturier.
It was here that he would design his collections by hand, entertain his circle of bohemian jet-setters in a decadent cloud of hashish, and lovingly cultivate the most exquisite collection of African and Middle Eastern art and furniture. Why Marrakesh? Yves Saint Laurent first came to the ancient Moroccan city with his partner Pierre Bergé in 1966, and it became a lifelong sanctuary where he would go to escape Paris. It was one of those you-can’t-quite–believe-it moments that must have taken months of preparation and infinite resources. The show kicked off as the sun set through dusky clouds and ended with gusts of wind billowing across the night sky.
It was a full-blown mirage - not the result of light passing through layers of micro-climates, but the work of British artist and set designer Es Devlin, who designed the mirrored amphitheatre, dusky red seats to echo the architecture of Marrakesh, and the circular pond of water from which a giant ring of light emerged like t he activation of the Stargate. For his SS23 menswear show, Anthony Vaccarello set up camp in the Agafay desert, an hour’s drive from Marrakesh, for a show that has been years in the making. Though it may seem that only yesterday designers were experimenting with videos and digital presentations - in the case of Saint Laurent that meant models hiking across sand dunes and frosty glaciers - the full-blown fashion moment has returned with gusto this year, accompanied by an audience to witness it wherever in the world it may be. Fashion shows, in all their blazing spectacle, are back.
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