This year there is a particular reason to remember the artist Léon Bakst — he was born exactly 160 years ago.
A key figure of Russian Art Nouveau and the creator of the most celebrated ‘Orientalist’ ballets of the Ballets Russes, Lev (or Léon, as he was known in the West) Bakst united theatre and painting, transforming stage design into an art form in its own right. Moreover, his stage costumes sparked a revolution in fashion too, injecting it with Eastern silhouettes and Eastern chic. Having begun by designing costumes for his wife, in the 1910s Bakst turned seriously to creating clothing, and later to textile design. “Dress like a flower!” he once wrote to his future wife. And we strongly recommend following that advice.
