In 1983, scandal erupted when New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art staged a costume exhibition devoted to the work of Yves Saint Laurent. The reason? Because Saint Laurent wasn’t dead – and neither was his business. One was hawking the inaccessible (such as, say, Picasso) and the other mass-product (with YSL launching its “Paris” perfume the same year). And for many, the link between a temple to art and the overt commercialism of fashion was unacceptable. “The equivalent of turning gallery space over to General Motors for a display of Cadillacs,” sniped the critic Robert Storr.

Admittedly, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hasn’t staged a solo exhibition of a living designer since then. Even talents as rich as Miuccia Prada and Karl Lagerfeld have been yoked to figures from further-flung history, such as Elsa Schiaparelli or Coco Chanel. And that avoids accusations of pandering to the advertising dollar, and of transforming estee ... Read more »