Innovative and beautiful furniture from the last century comes centre stage in the exhibition Saint Laurent-Charlotte Perriand, a collaboration between Saint Laurent and Anthony Vaccarello.
First shown in April at Milan Design Week, Saint Laurent and Belgian fashion designer Anthony Vaccarello have launched the exhibition Saint Laurent-Charlotte Perriand, an exclusive collaboration with the estate of renowned French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand that showcases incredible furniture designs dating from 1943 to 1967.
This partnership is the latest example of the Maison’s enduring dedication to design heritage and aims to present wider audiences with significant artefacts of design culture from previously inaccessible collections. The exhibition also pays tribute to the Maison founder’s personal admiration for Perriand’s work, as well as their shared passion for pure, modern design. Yves Saint Laurent collected Perriand’s works throughout his life, while Pierre Bergé supported important global retrospectives on her creative practice.
Architect, designer, urban planner and photographer Charlotte Perriand (1903–99) was a key figure in the history of twentieth-century design. From 1927 to 1937, as a partner of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, she worked on the development of home furnishings, shaping the tenets of modern interior architecture and producing many pieces now regarded as iconic. Her furniture designs from the 1950s and 1960s are considered seminal works in design history and enjoy prominent positions in prestigious public and private collections all over the world. She also helped found several international avant-garde movements, contributing to the dissemination of modernity across the globe, most notably in Japan.
Image courtesy of Saint Laurent
The designs that make up Saint Laurent-Charlotte Perriand, selected by Vaccarello for this illuminating show, have existed previously only as sketches and prototypes. Maison Saint Laurent has carefully reproduced and reissued all of these designs in brand-new limited edition pieces, available on a made-to-order basis. The entire selection made its first public appearance as part of Milan Design Week, unveiled at the Padiglione Visconti in early April, alongside a special volume by Saint Laurent of Perriand’s visionary photography.
The first of the four designs to be revived, Le Fauteuil Visiteur Indochine, has its origins in Perriand’s appointment as Director of Crafts and Applied Arts by the colonial administration of present-day Vietnam, following her mission as advisor to the Japanese government during the 1940s. During this time, Perriand designed several pieces of furniture for the personal use of herself and her husband, including this impressive guest armchair, of which only a drawing remains after the original piece was lost. Eighty years later, this elegant design has been recreated with its peculiar combination of modern and vernacular features.
La Banquette de la Résidence de l’Ambassadeur du Japon à Paris further draws upon Perriand’s Asian connections. In 1966, Japan commissioned architect Junzô Sakakura to design a new residence in Paris for the nation’s ambassador to France, with Perriand entrusted to oversee the interior architecture and furniture design. For the main reception room, Perriand designed a striking five-seat sofa of monumental proportions. Her ingenious design incorporates a base more than seven metres wide and which curves upwards at either end, giving the heavy piece the appearance of floating weightlessly above the ground. To help facilitate the Maison’s desire to recreate this astounding piece of furniture, the Japanese Embassy in Paris provided many important details of this elegant banquette.
The next piece, La Bibliothèque Rio de Janeiro, is a distinctive bookcase conceived to display works of art as well as books. Characterised by its large dimensions and careful construction from solid Brazilian rosewood, the original piece was produced in Rio de Janeiro in 1962. The sliding doors are made of woven cane, a craft technique used locally to make the protective sun shades of traditional houses. Today, the piece belongs to a private collection and has only been exhibited three times in the past 25 years.
The final piece, La Table Mille-Feuilles, previously seen only as a small maquette that once resided on Perriand’s desk, also makes its debut as a full-scale production. Originally designed in 1963, the table comprises ten superimposed layers of two varieties of light and dark wood, with a circular top bevelled around the edges and recessed in the centre to form concentric circles. An exceptional piece exemplifying Perriand’s creative acumen, it was never manufactured, as machining the top proved too difficult. Now, each newly produced Table Mille-Feuilles will carry a unique individual twist, due to the varying grain of the woods used and the singular patterns created during the moulding process.
