HomeExhibitions

Exhibitions

Permanent · Temporary · Galerie · Theatre lobby

Permanent exhibition

Current exhibition

YVES SAINT LAURENT ONSTAGE

FROM 30 JANUARY 2026 TO 05 JANUARY 2027

Costumes and decors for theater, ballet and musical revues

As a child, Yves Mathieu-Saint-Laurent discovered the magic of theater in Oran, Algeria, when in 1950 he attended a performance of Molière’s L’Ecole des femmes by Louis Jouvet’s theatrical com-pany. He was particularly struck by Christian Berard’s sets and costumes.

Christian Dior, his first and only employer, encouraged the young man to explore Parisian cultural life. But it was the choreographer Roland Petit who revealed his artistic talent by entrusting him with the costumes for the ballet Cyrano de Bergerac in 1959, followed by the costumes for eight other ballets, all before Saint Laurent opened his own couture house in 1962. The couturier’s collaboration with the dancer and singer Zizi Jeanmaire gave rise to legendary musical revues and costumes, including

Read moreShow less

“Mon truc en plumes” [My Feather Thing] from 196I.

The success of his ballet designs attracted the attention of the theater and film worlds. Saint Laurent worked on numerous projects that confirmed his passion for the stage and his interpretive talent.

While his fashion sketches are remarkable, it is his work as a costume designer that truly reveals his artistry through his mastery of light, keen sense of color, and use of precise lines to embody character and movement.

Countless women have experienced the thrill of wearing Yves Saint Laurent’s creations, but it is the actors and dancers who have worn his costumes that best attest to his creative genius when designing for the stage.

Guest Curators: Domitille Éblé and Stephan Janson 
Exhibition design: Jasmin Oezcebi
Lighting: Close Your Eyes 

Press kit :

English

French

Arabic

Exhibition guide :

English

French

Permanent exhibition

Past exhibitions

Yves Saint Laurent: The Hamish Bowles Collection
FROM 30 JANUARY 2025 TO 4 JANUARY 2026

From January 30, 2025, through January 4, 2026, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech invites you to experience Yves Saint Laurent: The Hamish Bowles Collection, fifty-three odes to elegance, brought to life through an outstanding loan that will enthral visitors.

From January 30, 2025, through January 4, 2026, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech (mYSLm) unveils a new dimension of the master couturier’s work through an extraordinary collection on loan from Hamish Bowles, an unparalleled collector and renowned fashion historian. The museum has offered Bowles carte blanche in preparing the exhibition, which offers viewers an exclusive opportunity to explore, for the first time, a collector’s perspective on Yves Saint Laurent’s pieces. The 53 vintage garments displayed are not from institutional archives, but directly from Hamish Bowles’ private collection. Bowles, a distinguished graduate of the prestigious Central Saint Martins in London, has an exceptional eye and an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion history and garment construction, making his insights invaluable. His unwavering obsession with clothing has defined his career as a fashion editor, journalist, historian and exhibition curator.

Read moreShow less

An Immersive and Baroque Scenography
Through a scenography designed by Anglo-Irish opera director Patrick Kinmonth, the exhibition invites visitors into an immersive experience, blending three iconic periods of Yves Saint Laurent’s creations: his early years at Christian Dior (1958–1960), the House of Yves Saint Laurent (1961–2002) and the evolution of SAINT LAURENT rive gauche. By offering a personal perspective on Yves Saint Laurent’s genius, this masterful exhibition, richly documented by a behind-the-scenes film directed by David Boatman and accompanied by a catalogue in French and English, celebrates the timeless modernity of the couturier’s works while inviting Moroccan and international visitors to delve into a unique heritage, captured through the passionate gaze of a world-renowned collector.

A Living Collection
The Hamish Bowles Collection is not just a reflection of the couturier’s legacy; it embodies a seamless continuity between everyday wear and exceptional runway creations. Each piece tells a story, each silhouette evokes an emotion, all paying tribute to Yves Saint Laurent’s timeless genius. This exhibition goes beyond a mere retrospective, offering an immersive and stimulating experience, inviting viewers to understand and celebrate the couturier’s lasting influence. From the cocktail dress of the 1957 Autumn–Winter collection (Dior era) to the blue SAINT LAURENT rive gauche jumpsuit worn by Betty Catroux, 53 models, accompanied by sketches, workshop notes and illustrations from the museum’s collection, reveal the unique fusion of the creator’s life and work. Garments worn by iconic figures such as Nan Kempner and Lily Safra blend with those worn by anonymous women. Lastly, a 1969 patchwork ensemble evokes the influence of Marrakech on his creations, highlighting the special aura of Yves Saint Laurent, who continues to inspire women across the world.

Guest Curator: Hamish Bowles
Exhibition design: Patrick Kinmonth Atelier
Lighting: Studio ZNA 

Press kit :

English

French

Exhibition Guide :

English

French

Arabic


LES FLEURS D’YVES SAINT LAURENT
FROM 2 MARCH 2024 TO 5 JANUARY 2025

The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech (mYSLm) is delighted to announce the opening, on March 2, 2024, of the exhibition Les Fleurs d’Yves Saint Laurent, which will coincide with the seventh anniversary―in October 2024―of the founding of the Yves Saint Laurent museums in Marrakech and Paris. For the first time, the two museums will prepare and mount a joint exhibition and catalogue project under the curatorship of Gaël Mamine and Olivier Saillard.

Olivier Saillard curated the exhibition Yves Saint Laurent: The Scandal Collection, 1971, seen at the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, Paris in 2015. At the time, Gaël Mamine was head of collections at the Foundation. Together, they mounted their first joint exhibition,Yves Saint Laurent: Line and Expression, which was seen alongside the exhibition Cy Twombly: Morocco, 1952/1953. These two exhibitions, which were seen at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech in 2023, placed drawing at the heart of the work of the French couturier and American artist.

Together, Olivier Saillard and Gaël Mamine are preparing a second exhibition, Les Fleurs d’Yves Saint Laurent, to be mounted simultaneously at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris. The exhibition will focus on the passion that Yves Saint Laurent, as well as Pierre Bergé, had for nature. Saillard and Mamine will place lilies of the valley, bougainvilleas, roses, wheat, poppies and lilies on herbarium boards that could have been imagined by the couturier.

Exhibition curators: Olivier Saillard, Gaël Mamine
Exhibition design: Claudia Huidobro

Press kit :
English
French
Arabic

Temporary exhibition

Current exhibition

FROM OCTOBER 03, 2026 TO MARCH 07, 2027

An adventurer whose life story is worthy of a novel, Odette du Puigaudeau (b. Saint-Nazaire, 1894 – d. Rabat, 1991) was one of the keenest observers of the Sahara. Through her writings, drawings and photographs produced during her lengthy, unhurried journeys across the desert, she always sought to capture the character of nomadic societies grappling with the shift toward settled life and industrial modernity.

Her body of work aims to “awaken a longing for the desert.” While Odette du Puigaudeau’s life and travels are inextricably linked to the land of “the Moors,” a term then used to include various North African peoples, her discovery of these societies and cultures was also a journey of self-discovery.

Read moreShow less

Following exhibitions dedicated to Bert Flint (1931–2022) in 2020 and Théophile-Jean Delaye (1896–1971) in 2022, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech and the Pierre Bergé Museum of Berber Arts continue their exploration of key figures who bore witness to the history, geography and anthropology of Morocco and the Sahara during the twentieth century.

Exhibition curators: Hayate Machache and Monique Vérité
Exhibition design : Jasmin Oezcebi

Press release:

Arabic

French

English

Until 7 March 2027

Temporary exhibition

Past exhibitions

18 items

SAISON 2025/2026

David Seidner – Yves Saint Laurent

FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2025 TO SEPTEMBER 13, 2026

SAISON 2025/2026

Birds of Mexico

UNTIL JULY 27, 2025

SAISON 2024/2025

Jardin Majorelle: Who Are We?

FROM 29 JULY 2024 TO 2 FEBRUARY 2025

SAISON 2024/2025

Cactus

FROM 2 MARCH 2024 TO 7 JULY 2024

SAISON 2023/2024

YVES SAINT LAURENT : LINE AND EXPRESSION

FROM 4 MARCH 2023 TO 8 FEBRUARY 2024 AT MUSEE YVES SAINT LAURENT MARRAKECH

SAISON 2023/2024

SERPENT : ABORIGINAL ART FROM AUSTRALIA

FROM 21 JULY 2023 TO 28 JANUARY 2024

SAISON 2023/2024

Cy Twombly, Morocco, 1952/1953

FROM 4 MARCH TO 2 JULY 2023 AT MUSEE YVES SAINT LAURENT MARRAKECH

SAISON 2022/2023

Théophile-Jean Delaye’s Morocco (1896-1970)

FROM 17 SEPTEMBER 2022 TO 29 JANUARY 2023

SAISON 2021/2022

Une amitié marocaine

FROM 16 OCTOBER 2021 TO 31 JULY 2022

SAISON 2020/2021

BERT FLINT : AN EXHIBITION

FROM 21 OCTOBER 2020 TO 1 AUGUST 2021

SAISON 2019/2020

Jacques Azema. A Poetic Adventure

FROM 27 OCTOBER 2019 TO 24 MARCH 2020

SAISON 2019/2020

Desert Design

FROM 16 JUNE 2019 TO 8 OCTOBER 2019

SAISON 2019/2020

Christo: Femmes 1962-1968

FROM 23 MARCH TO 2 JUNE 2019

SAISON 2019/2020

BRICE MARDEN MOROCCO

FROM 22 FEBRUARY TO 12 MARCH 2019

SAISON 2018/2019

Les Marocains by Leila Alaoui

FROM 30 SEPTEMBER 2018 TO 5 FEBRUARY 2019

SAISON 2018/2019

Garden of Memory

ETEL ADNAN – SIMONE FATTAL – BOB WILSON FROM 14 MAY TO 16 SEPTEMBER 2018

SAISON 2017/2018

Jacques Majorelle’s Morocco

FROM 19 OCTOBER 2017 TO 4 FEBRUARY 2018

SAISON 2017/2018

The sculptural dresses of Noureddine Amir

23 FEBRUARY 2017 TO 22 AVRIL 2018

Galerie

Current exhibition

YVES SAINT LAURENT AND HIS DOGS

FROM SEPTEMBER 25, 2025 TO SEPTEMBER 29, 2026

This exhibition, curated by Martin Bethenod, explores the intimate and inspiring role that dogs played in the life and work of Yves Saint Laurent.

On view from Thursday, September 25, 2025, through Tuesday, September 29, 2026.

“I am, as they say, a ‘dog person’.” With this confession, Yves Saint Laurent summarized a lifelong passion. The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech pays homage to the couturier’s passion for his canine friends with “Yves Saint Laurent and His Dogs,” a sensitive and scholarly exhibition curated by Martin Bethenod. For the first time, an exhibition traces the inseparable bond between the couturier and his four-legged companions. Far from being mere pets, Yves Saint Laurent’s dogs were endearing figures, silent muses, and icons in their own right, whose presence permeated both his personal universe and his revolutionary body of work.

Exhibition curators:  Martin Bethenod

Press kit :
French
English
Arabic

Galerie

Past exhibitions

YVES SAINT LAURENT’S COMIC STRIP: NAUGHTY LULU [LA VILAINE LULU]
STARTING FROM JULY 11, 2024

The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech (mYSLm) is delighted to announce a new collaborative project between the mYSLm and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris: the upcoming exhibition Yves Saint Laurent’s comic strip: Naughty Lulu [La Vilaine Lulu]. Co-curated by Serena Bucalo-Mussely and Domitille Eblé, head of collections and manager of the graphic art collections, respectively, at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, the exhibition will be on view at the mYSLm’s photography gallery beginning July 11, 2024.

In 1956, the twenty-year-old Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent was already working as an assistant to Christian Dior, sketching ideas for upcoming collections. In the evenings, one of the couture house’s employees, Jean-Pierre Frère, would have fun cross-dressing: “Often, after six o’clock, a Christian Dior employee would ‘dress up.’ One evening he pulled his pants up to his knees. I remember he wore long black socks. In the booth used by the fashion models, he found a red tulle petticoat and a [Venetian] gondolier’s hat. I was impressed by the stubbornly sly appearance of this very short man and said to him, “You are naughty Lulu [Tu es la vilaine Lulu]”.*

Read moreShow less

This anecdote gave birth to the character of Naughty Lulu [La Vilaine Lulu], who would inspire Yves Saint Laurent to create his mischievous comic strip.

The comic strip’s readers follow the adventures of a little girl, Naughty Lulu, over the course of twenty-four stories, such as “Lulu at school” or “The Lulu year.” Always dressed in the same way, she is accompanied by her pet, a white rat. The dialogues are filled with her favorite expressions and repurposed words dear to her, such as “Pluck” and “Schmuck.”

The album La Vilaine Lulu is on sale at the bookshop of the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech at the price of 320 dhs.

A limited, luxury edition of La Vilaine Lulu―ten copies presented in a large, elegant slipcase―are also on sale at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech bookshop; price on request.

Exhibition curators:  Serena Bucalo-Mussely, Domitille Eblé
Exhibition design: Jasmin Oezcebi

Press kit :
English
French
Arabic


ULI GASSMANN
FROM 13 JULY 2023 TO 9 JULY 2024

Ulrich Gassmann’s unique artistic relationship with the private homes belonging to Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and the public spaces associated with the couple, began fifteen years ago in the apartment the grand couturier and his partner shared at 55 Rue de Babylone on Paris’s Left Bank. After Saint Laurent’s death in 2008, Gassmann, a self-taught architect and artist from Germany (born in Heiligenstadt in 1947) produced a series of sketches of the apartment, which housed the couple’s highly personal and eclectic art collection.

Gassmann also produced drawings of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s offices at 5 Avenue Marceau in Paris, including a large panoramic frieze in pen and ink of Yves Saint Laurent’s legendary haute couture studio. Gassmann’s wall-length drawing, along with four

other works, now hangs in the Le Studio café at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech. They capture the magical atmosphere of the designer’s creative space.

Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s Marrakech properties have also been a rich source of inspiration for Gassmann. Over the years, during multiple residencies, he has drawn and painted the gardens and interiors of the Villa Oasis, the Villa Dar Es Saada and the Jardin Majorelle, producing close to one hundred works, twenty-two of which are included in this exhibition.

Press kit :
English
French
Arabic


STUDIO KO : MUSÉE YVES SAINT LAURENT MARRAKECH
FROM 17 SEPTEMBER  2022 TO 04 JULY 2023

To mark the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, this exhibition spotlights the conceptualization and development of this architectural project.

A total of 1,423 days passed between the initial phone call placed by Pierre Bergé to the Franco-Moroccan firm Studio KO, in which he proposed that they work together on a museum dedicated to Yves Saint Laurent, and the museum’s opening on October 14, 2017. During the four-year project, the architects Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty and their team*, in close collaboration with their sponsor, designed a contemporary Moroccan building, one that is “humble but proud,” whose greatest strength lies in its perfect integration into its environment.

The design approach of Studio KO, founded in 2000 in Paris and Marrakech, is resolutely contextual: the firm adheres to the use of local techniques and materials, implemented by talented craftsmen, but also, and above all, to the importance of a thorough study of the project’s site―its surroundings―whether in a wild landscape or an urban setting.

Drawings, plans, photographs and models illustrate the process of architectural creation and the construction methods that went into the museum’s exhibition galleries, auditorium, library, bookshop and café-restaurant, as well as the reserves for the museum’s collections.

* Project manager Fayçal Tiaïba assisted by Elena Jimenez, Mohamed Rabia Akhal Laayoune, Yassir Lemdihb, Hervé Micaud and Marouane Bendahmane.

Press kit :
English
French


ENTRE NOUS, PHOTO MEMOIR BY MARY RUSSELL
FROM 12 NOVEMBER 2021 TO 31 JULY 2023

Due to this great success, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech is pleased to announce that the exhibition “Entre Nous: Photo Memoir by Mary Russell” will be extended until 31 July 2022.

Who Is Mary Russell?

An American in Paris, journalist, photographer and epicurean.

Mary was born in Boston, the daughter of a naval officer who was transferred to the Sixth Fleet Admiralty at Villefranche-sur-mer, France. She received a French education and studied at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Nice before returning to the U.S.

With her relentless energy, daring and French allure, Mary fascinated the reigning priestess of fashion Diana Vreeland, who becomes a lifelong fairy godmother to her, propelling her to Glamour magazine as a fashion assistant in New York and later in Paris.

“I’ve always loved adventure and always imagined myself as the heroine of my own film.” Little did she know that her film’s scenario, starting in Paris, would surpass her wildest dreams. Her role was to find and reveal the up-and-coming young creators in those explosive 1960s, such as Yves Saint Laurent, whom she not only met, but won over completely. Already close to Andy Warhol and the Factory in New York, and David Bailey in London, she inspired Yves and introduced him to this new world of provocation, daring and outrageous talent.

Graduating to Vogue in Paris, working as photostylist for the magazine, Mary assisted photographers Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, Lord Snowdon and Henry Clarke, among others, who encouraged her passion for the camera. Intrepid voyeuse, armed with her trusty Nikon, she began to steal time…

“We thought we would never grow old, would always stay entre nous.”

The photographs of this exhibition were, for the most part, taken from the book Entre Nous: Bohemian Chic in the 1960s and 1970s: A Photo Memoir by Mary Russell, published by Flammarion in March 2020 and edited by Pierre Passebon.

Press kit :
English
French

Exhibitions

The theatre lobby

In the theatre lobby, one sees the important work
done by yves saint laurent
for the theatre, ballet, cabaret and cinema

From the beginning of the 1950s until the end of his career, the couturier was greatly influenced by the stage and screen, as seen by a selection of sketches, drawings and photographs of the costumes he designed for them. He worked alongside Roland Petit, Claude Régy, Jean-Louis Barrault, Luis Buñuel and François Truffaut. His costumes were worn by Jean Marais, Zizi Jeanmaire, Arletty, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Adjani and Catherine Deneuve, who would become one of his closest friends.