Yves Saint Laurent | |
|---|---|
| Saint Laurent in 1961 | |
| Pronunciation | /ˌiːvˌsæ̃lɔːˈrɒ̃/ , also UK: /-lɒˈ-/ , US: /-loʊˈ-/ , French: [ivsɛ̃lɔʁɑ̃] ⓘ |
| Born | Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent 1 August 1936 |
| Died | 1 June 2008 (aged 71) |
| Resting place | Jardin Majorelle, Marrakesh 31°38′34″N8°0′11″W / 31.64278°N 8.00306°W |
| Education | Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture |
| Occupation | Fashion designer |
| Years active |
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| Known for | Being the world's youngest couturier, founding fashion house Yves Saint Laurent |
| Partner | Pierre Bergé |
| Parents |
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| Awards | 1982 CFDA International Fashion Award 1985 Oscar de la mode 1999 CFDA Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award |
| Website | www |
Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent (1 August 1936 – 1 June 2008), [1] better known as Yves Saint Laurent ( /ˌiːvˌsæ̃lɔːˈrɒ̃/ , also UK: /-lɒ-/ , US: /-loʊ-/ ; French: [ivsɛ̃lɔʁɑ̃] ⓘ ) or YSL, was a French fashion designer who, in 1962, founded his eponymous fashion label. He is regarded as being among the foremost fashion designers of the twentieth century. [2]
Saint Laurent's designs often combined elements of comfort and elegance. He is credited with having introduced the "Le Smoking" tuxedo suit for women, and was known for his use of non-European cultural references and diverse models. [3] Fashion historian Caroline Milbank called Saint Laurent "the most consistently celebrated and influential designer of the past twenty-five years", adding that he "can be credited with both spurring the couture's rise from its 1960s ashes and with finally rendering ready-to-wear reputable". [4] In 1983, Saint Laurent became the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a solo exhibition.
Throughout his couturier career, Saint Laurent received multiple awards for his work. He is a recipient of the 1982 International Fashion Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the 1985 Oscar de la mode, and the 1999 Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award at the CFDA Fashion Awards.
Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent was born on 1 August 1936, in Oran, Algeria, [5] [6] to French parents ( Pieds-Noirs ) with some Spanish heritage, Charles and Lucienne Andrée Mathieu-Saint-Laurent. [7] He grew up in a villa by the Mediterranean with his two younger sisters, Michèle and Brigitte. [7] As a child, he liked to create intricate paper dolls, and by his early teen years, he was designing dresses for his mother and sisters. [8]
In 1953, Saint Laurent submitted three sketches to a contest for young fashion designers organized by the International Wool Secretariat. Saint Laurent won first place. Subsequently, he was invited to attend the awards ceremony held in Paris in December. [9]
During his stay in Paris, Saint Laurent met Michel de Brunhoff, editor-in-chief of the French edition of Vogue magazine and a connection to his father. De Brunhoff was impressed by the sketches that Saint Laurent brought with him and suggested he should become a fashion designer. Saint Laurent enrolled in a course of study at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, [10] the council which regulates the haute couture industry and provides training to its employees. Saint Laurent graduated at the top of his class. The same year he graduated, he entered the International Wool Secretariat competition again and won, beating his friend Fernando Sánchez and Karl Lagerfeld. [11]
Shortly after his win, he brought a number of sketches to de Brunhoff, who recognized close similarities to sketches he had been shown that morning by Christian Dior. [12] Knowing that Dior had created the sketches that morning and that the young man could not have seen them, de Brunhoff sent him to Dior, who hired him on the spot on June 20, 1955. [13]
"Dior fascinated me," Saint Laurent later recalled. "I couldn't speak in front of him. He taught me the basis of my art. Whatever was to happen next, I never forgot the years I spent at his side." Under Dior's tutelage, Saint Laurent's style continued to mature and gain even more notice. [14]
Although Dior recognised his talent immediately, Saint Laurent spent his first year at the House of Dior on mundane tasks, decorating the studio and designing accessories. Eventually he was allowed to submit sketches for the couture collection. With each passing season, more of his sketches were accepted by Dior. [15] Some Dior collections from this period contain themes that would appear in Saint Laurent's independent work years later, such as the smock tops and safari jackets in Dior's 1957 "Libre" line. [16]
In August 1957, Dior met with Saint Laurent's mother to tell her that he had chosen Saint Laurent to succeed him as a designer. His mother later said that she had been confused by the remark, as Dior was only 52 years old at the time. She claimed both she and her son were surprised when Dior died at a health spa in northern Italy of a massive heart attack in October 1957. [17]
In 1957, at 21 years old, Saint Laurent became the head designer of the House of Dior. His spring 1958 collection almost certainly saved the enterprise from financial ruin. [18] [19] The simple, flaring lines of his first collection for Dior, called the Trapeze line, [20] [21] a variation of Dior's 1955 A-Line, [22] [23] [24] catapulted him to international stardom. Dresses in the collection featured a narrow shoulder that flared gently to a hem that just covered the knee. [25] Later collections for the House of Dior featuring hobble skirts (fall 1959) and beatnik fashions (fall 1960) were savaged by the press. [26]
In 1959, he was chosen by Farah Diba, then a student in Paris, to design her wedding dress for her marriage to the Shah of Iran. [27]
In 1960, Saint Laurent was conscripted to serve in the French Army during the Algerian War. [28]
Saint Laurent was in the military for 20 days before the stress of hazing by fellow soldiers led to him being admitted to a military hospital. There he received news that he had been fired from Dior and replaced by Marc Bohan. [29] This exacerbated his condition, and he was transferred to Val-de-Grâce military hospital, where he was given large doses of sedatives and psychoactive drugs and subjected to electroshock therapy. [30] Saint Laurent himself traced the origin of both his mental problems and his drug addictions to this time in hospital. [17]
After his release from the hospital in November 1960, Saint Laurent sued Dior for breach of contract and won. After a period of convalescence, he and his partner, industrialist Pierre Bergé, started their own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent or YSL, with funds from American millionaire J. Mack Robinson, [31] cosmetics company Charles of the Ritz, and others. [32] A number of Dior staff joined him at his new enterprise. [33] [34]
His debut collection, presented for spring 1962, was noted for its suits [35] and included early examples of the cut-outs that would be popular in fashion in a few years, [36] but it received mixed reviews. [37] [38] His second collection, for fall 1962, was celebrated as his best since his 1958 Trapeze collection for Dior. [39] [40] Fashion writers ranked the collection with that of Givenchy as among the best in Paris. [41] [42] It featured India-inspired evening dress, a mostly dark, rich color palette, [43] couture adaptations of traditional pea coats and fishermen's smocks (a theme seen as early as 1957 in his work for Dior), [44] [45] and a refinement of the bohemian influences seen in his fall 1960 Dior collection, evoking in a number of journalists' minds Paris's Left Bank. [46]
In the 1960s, Saint Laurent introduced or contributed to fashion trends such as the beatnik look (1962), [47] [48] pea coats (1962), [49] [50] smock tops (1962-63), [51] [52] thigh-high boots (1963, via his chosen shoe designer Roger Vivier), [53] [54] the Le Smoking women's tuxedo suit (1966), [55] [56] platform shoes (1967, courtesy of Roger Vivier), [57] and safari jackets for men and women (1967). [58]
Throughout the 1960s, Saint Laurent followed the international youth culture taking shape, a tendency already evident in his fall 1960 Dior collection. Like designers and others of the period, he kept an eye on the pace-setting streets of London [59] and also on the hippie movement emanating from the US. [60] [61] [62] He responded to the spare precision of André Courrèges's groundbreaking 1964 and '65 Space Age designs with the now-famous stark, geometric shift dresses of his 1965 Mondrian collection [63] but faltered a bit with the slightly passé Pop Art dresses in his autumn 1966 line. [64]
He was the first French couturier to come out with a full prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) line; although Alicia Drake credits this move with Saint Laurent's wish to democratize fashion; [65] others[ who? ] point out that other couture houses were preparing prêt-à-porter lines at the same time – the House of Yves Saint Laurent merely announced its line first. The purpose of the prêt-à-porter line was to provide a wider range of fashionable styles being available to choose from in the market, as they were affordable and cheaper.
The first of the company's Rive Gauche stores, which sold the prêt-à-porter line, opened on the rue de Tournon in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, on 26 September 1966. The first customer was Catherine Deneuve. [66] He designed the costumes for Deneuve in films such as Belle de Jour , Heartbeat, and Mississippi Mermaid . [67]
In 1967, Éditions Tchou published a book by Saint Laurent, La Vilaine Lulu (The Villain Lulu), a collection of comic strips featuring a cruelly mischievous little girl named Lulu that the designer had been sketching since 1956, when he had been inspired by a costume worn by one of Dior's colleagues. The child engages in pranks ranging from abusing hospital patients to defiling André Courrèges's pristine white salon with black paint. [68] [69]
The revolutionary societal movements of the time [70] transformed Saint Laurent's thinking and he began to base his work more on what women were actually wearing than on abstract ideas in his head. [71] [72] [73] A number of his designs were inspired by women's lives in the sociopolitical climate of the time, [74] particularly the trousers he showed in 1968 after witnessing the epochal French uprisings of that year. [75] [76] Saint Laurent is often said to have been the main designer responsible for making women wearing pants more widely acceptable, [77] [78] [79] after André Courrèges made the first strides in that direction in 1964. [80]
The social transformations of the late 1960s also influenced how Saint Laurent himself dressed, as he wore more relaxed clothes reflecting the era's youth movements and let his hair grow. [81] [82] His new personal wardrobe led to him presenting his first men's ready-to-wear collection in 1969. [83]
In September 1968, Saint Laurent opened the first Rive Gauche store in the United States on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. [75] While in New York, he attended the exhibition of his costume sketches for ballet and theatrical productions at the Wright Hepburn Webster Gallery. [84] During this trip Saint Laurent and his entourage were denied entry to Trader Vic's restaurant because the women were wearing pants. [84]
In 1971, he posed for a natural-looking nude photograph as part of the advertising campaign for his Pour Homme men's fragrance. [85]
During the 1970s, Saint Laurent came to be considered the most prominent designer in the world, [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] adapting his designs to modern women's needs. [91] [92] [93] [94] Though Karl Lagerfeld [95] [96] and Jean Muir [97] occasionally approached him in critical appraisal and popularity, Saint Laurent remained the strongest influence on fashion throughout the decade, an era when the societal advances of the 1960s required designers to defer to the public's demands for practicality and comfort. [98] [99] Even in his sometimes lavish Russian peasant collections of the middle of the decade, [100] [101] [102] the clothes themselves remained comfortable and wearable. [103] [104]
His controversial spring 1971 collection was inspired by 1940s fashion. Some felt it romanticized the German occupation of France during World War II, which he did not experience, while others felt it brought back the unattractive utilitarianism of the time. [105] The French newspaper France Soir called the spring 1971 collection "Une grande farce!" [66]
His spring 1971 couture collection marked other changes. Now that the liberatory trends of the 1960s and early '70s had become established, with women released from constricting undergarments and free to wear trousers in all settings and men also free to be more casual in their dress, advances aided in no small part by Saint Laurent, he shed some of the less appealing aspects of the youth culture of that period, particularly after losing a couple of young friends to the drug experimentation of the time. [106] While still exhibiting the pervasive relaxed, casual look, by 1972 he had begun to cut his hair and shave again and discarded the well-worn jeans and shoelessness. [107] Saint Laurent had nurtured ready-to-wear to the extent that it now eclipsed the haute couture in prominence. [108] In 1971, amidst heavy criticism of his 1940s-themed collection, he threatened to end his couture services entirely. [109] Instead, Saint Laurent and a few others declared in early 1972 that they would now show their couture pieces with their prêt-á-porter, [110] but soon Saint Laurent began to worry publicly that the craftsmanship of the couture might be lost, [111] as well as the livelihoods of those who depended on him, [112] and he decided to carry on holding separate couture presentations. [113]
While the prêt-à-porter line became extremely popular with the public [114] and eventually earned many times more for Saint Laurent and Bergé than the haute couture line, Saint Laurent's decision to continue producing haute couture lines resulted in some landmark collections as well during the 1970s, most famously the fall 1976 Russian Peasant collection, which brought the popular peasant silhouette of the time to a peak of exotic luxury, [115] but also his spring 1978 Broadway Suit presentation, [116] which inspired the fashion industry to move toward wide, padded shoulders. [117] However, Saint Laurent, whose health had been precarious for years, became erratic under the pressure of designing two haute couture and two prêt-à-porter collections every year.
In 1976, Saint Laurent and Bergé ended their romantic relationship but remained business partners. [118] Saint Laurent increasingly turned to alcohol and drugs. [119] At some shows, he could barely walk down the runway at the end of the show, and he had to be supported by models. [120]
Saint Laurent is credited with initiating in 1978 the prominently shoulder-padded styles that would characterize the 1980s. [121] [122] He then relied on a restricted set of looks based largely on big-shouldered jackets and narrow skirts and trousers [123] [124] that wouldn't vary much for a decade, [125] [126] [127] [128] resulting in some fashion writers bemoaning the loss of his former inventiveness [129] [130] and others welcoming the familiarity. [131] [132] [133] Where in the 1960s and '70s his work had reflected the democratizing trends of the time, [134] during the 1980s his work conformed more to the tastes of the wealthy [135] as social inequality increased in society. [136] [137] [138] His broad-shouldered wardrobe basics now seemed geared more to the ladies-who-lunch set [139] than the liberated, casual young women he had been inspired by in the earlier 1970s, and his work was now often grouped with that of Givenchy, [140] [141] Valentino, Oscar de la Renta, and similar designers. [142] [143] He was noted in the early 1980s for his short, slim, sleek black leather skirts. [144] [145] After helping bring ready-to-wear to mass acceptance earlier in his career and nearly abandoning haute couture in the early 1970s, during the 1980s, with the nouveaux riches in ascendance and demanding showpieces, [146] [147] [148] he refocused on his couture lines, to the extent that observers felt that his prêt-á-porter was being neglected. [149] He was one of the last designers to give up big shoulder pads at the end of the eighties. [150] [151]
After a disastrous 1987 prêt-à-porter show in New York City, which featured US$100,000 jeweled casual jackets only days after the "Black Monday" stock market crash, he turned over the responsibility of the prêt-à-porter line to his assistants. Although the line remained popular with his fans, it was soon dismissed as "boring" by the press. [66]
In 1993, the Yves Saint Laurent business was sold to Sanofi. [152] He became increasingly reclusive, but continued to design the couture collection until 2002. [153]
A favorite among his female clientele, Saint Laurent had a number of muses that inspired his work. Among them were: French model Victoire Doutreleau, [154] who opened his first fashion show in 1962; [155] Loulou de la Falaise, [154] [156] the daughter of a French marquis and an Anglo-Irish model, who became the jewellery designer for the brand; [157] Betty Catroux, [154] [156] the half-Brazilian daughter of an American diplomat, who Saint Laurent considered his "twin sister"; [158] French actress Catherine Deneuve; [154] [156] French model Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain, [159] who inspired the Le Smoking suit; [160] American-French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, who also inspired the Le Smoking suit; [161] Warhol superstar Donna Jordan, who inspired his spring 1971 collection; [162] Mounia, [154] [156] a model from Martinique who was the oft-used bride at his fashion shows; Kenyan model Khadija Adam Ismail; [163] Lucie de la Falaise, [164] [165] a Welsh-French model and niece of Loulou, who was the bride in his fashion shows in 1990–1994; jewellery designer Paloma Picasso; [154] [156] Dutch actress Talitha Getty; [166] [167] American socialite Nan Kempner, [168] [169] who was named ambassador for the brand; [170] Italian model Marina Schiano, [154] [156] who managed the YSL boutiques in North America; French model Nicole Dorier, [171] who became the director of his runway shows, [172] and later, the "memory" of his house when it became a museum; and French model Laetitia Casta, [173] who was the bride in his fashion shows in 1998–2001. [174]
Saint Laurent died on 1 June 2008 of brain cancer at his residence in Paris. [175] According to The New York Times , a few days prior, he and Bergé had been joined in a same-sex civil union known as a Pacte civil de solidarité (PACS) in France. [176] When Saint Laurent was diagnosed as terminal, with only one or two weeks left to live, Bergé and the doctor mutually decided that it would be better for him not to know of his impending death. Bergé said, "I have the belief that Yves would not have been strong enough to accept that." [177]
He was given a Catholic funeral at Église Saint-Roch in Paris. [178] The funeral attendees included the former Empress of Iran Farah Pahlavi, Bernadette Chirac, Catherine Deneuve, and President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni. [179]
His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in Marrakesh, Morocco, in the Majorelle Garden, a residence and botanical garden that he owned with Bergé and often visited to find inspiration and refuge. [180] Bergé said at the funeral service (in French): "But I also know that I will never forget what I owe you and that one day I will join you under the Moroccan palms."
Yves Saint Laurent met Pierre Bergé in 1958. After falling in love, they co-founded the Yves Saint Laurent Couture House in 1961. They remained longtime friends and business partners after their amicable breakup in 1976. [181]
In 1970, Saint Laurent befriended pop artist Andy Warhol while the latter was filming L'Amour in Paris. [105] [182] Saint Laurent had his portrait commissioned in 1972, and Warhol traveled to Paris to photograph him. [183] During a visit to New York in November 1972, Saint Laurent saw the portrait and remarked, "The colors are marvelous — orange, red, green, and pink." [184] [185] In February 1974, Saint Laurent hosted a party for Warhol to celebrate his one-man shows at the Musée Galliera and the Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris. [186]
In 1973, Saint Laurent began a six-month affair with Karl Lagerfeld's companion Jacques de Bascher. [187] Bergé ended their liaison in 1974, accusing de Bascher and Lagerfeld of being responsible for Saint Laurent's mental health issues and his increasing interest in hard drugs and sadomasochism. [188]
During the 1970s, Saint Laurent was considered one of Paris's "jet set". [189] He was often seen at clubs in France and New York City, such as Club Sept, Regine's, Studio 54, and Le Palace, and was known to be both a heavy drinker and a frequent user of cocaine. [190]
Saint Laurent and Bergé made their first trip to Marrakesh in 1966, which marked the start of a lifelong passion for Moroccan culture. [191] Saint Laurent once stated, "Everything was black before Marrakech." "I learned color from this city, and I embraced its light, its bold blends, and its passionate inventions." [191] For multiple years to come, Saint Laurent and Bergé would return and purchase various properties. They acquired Dar Es Saada in 1974, [192] Villa Oasis 45 and Majorelle Garden in 1980, [193] and Villa Mabrouka in 1997. [194]
The duplex at 55 Rue de Babylone on the Left Bank of Paris, which Saint Laurent and Bergé purchased in 1970, was highlighted in the May 1972 issue of British Vogue. [192] French architect Jean-Michel Frank designed the apartment's interior in the 1920s in the Art Deco style. [192] The apartment featured vases by Jean Dunand, stools by Pierre Legrain, a red lacquer-framed stool by Gustave Miklos, an armchair by Eileen Gray, and sheep chairs by Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne. [195]
In 1983, Saint Laurent and Bergé bought a neo-gothic villa, Château Gabriel in Benerville-sur-Mer, near Deauville, France. [196] Saint Laurent was a great admirer of Marcel Proust who had been a frequent guest of Gaston Gallimard, one of the previous owners of the villa. When they bought Château Gabriel, Saint Laurent and Bergé commissioned Jacques Grange to decorate it with themes inspired by Proust's Remembrance of Things Past . [197]
In February 2009, an auction of 733 items from Saint Laurent and Bergé's collection was held by Christie's at the Grand Palais, ranging from paintings by Picasso to ancient Egyptian sculptures. The proceeds went to HIV and AIDS research. [198]
Before the sale commenced, the Chinese government tried to stop the sale of two of twelve bronze statue heads taken from the Old Summer Palace in China during the Second Opium War. [199] A French judge dismissed the claim and the sculptures, heads of a rabbit and a rat, sold for €15,745,000. However, the anonymous buyer revealed himself to be Cai Mingchao, a representative of the PRC's National Treasures Fund, and claimed that he would not pay for them on "moral and patriotic grounds". [200] The heads remained in Bergé's possession until acquired by François Pinault, owner of a number of luxury brands including Yves Saint Laurent. [201] He then donated them to China in a ceremony on 29 June 2013. [202]
On the first day of the sale, Henri Matisse's painting Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose broke the previous world record set in 2007 for a Matisse work and sold for 32 million euros. The record-breaking sale realized 342.5 million euros (£307 million). [203] The subsequent auction, 17–20 November, included 1,185 items from the couple's Normandy villa. While not as impressive as the first auction, it featured the designer's last Mercedes-Benz car and his Hermès luggage. [204]
In 1982, Saint Laurent received the International Fashion Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. [205]
In 1983, Saint Laurent became the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a solo exhibition. [206]
In 1985, Saint Laurent was awarded the Oscar de la mode for his "'contribution to the history of fashion.'' [207]
In 1999, Saint Laurent received the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award at the CFDA Fashion Awards. [208]
In 2001, Saint Laurent was awarded the rank of Commander of the Légion d'Honneur by French President Jacques Chirac. [209]
In 2007, Saint Laurent was awarded the rank of Grand officier de la Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. [210] [211]
In 2004, Saint Laurent created a foundation with Bergé in Paris to trace the history of the house of YSL, complete with 15,000 objects and 5,000 pieces of clothing. [212]
Forbes rated Saint Laurent the top-earning dead celebrity in 2009. [213]
In 2010, the street in front of the Majorelle Garden in Marrakesh was renamed the Rue Yves Saint Laurent in his honor. [214]
In 2022, the "Yves Saint Laurent Aux Musées" exhibition was held simultaneously at six Parisian cultural institutions: the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Musée du Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée National Picasso–Paris, and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, demonstrating the enduring legacy of his work and his lifelong fascination with art. [215] This exhibition highlighted his connections to various art forms and his ability to blend fashion with artistic expression. [215]
The Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris, housed in the old Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, opened its doors in 2017. [216] Through a continuously updated collection display, the museum chronicles his career. [217] The exhibition space was renovated by stage designer Nathalie Crinière and interior designer Jacques Grange. [217]
The Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakesh, also opened in 2017. Pierre Bergé personally chose the thousands of pieces of apparel and haute couture accessories housed in the 43,000-square-foot structure, which was created by the Paris-based studio Studio KO. [218]
Saint Laurent's childhood home in Oran, Algeria, where he lived until the age of 18, was purchased by the Oran entrepreneur Mohamed Affane. He transformed it into a museum, Résidence Yves Saint Laurent Oran, which opened in 2022. [219] The period furniture was recovered and around 400 sketches by Yves Saint-Laurent are exhibited, along with childhood photos of the designer. [220] [221]
...Saint Laurent showed [Michel de Brunhoff] some drawings that looked astoundingly like the 'A-Line' collection Christian Dior had just designed...
Raymonde Zehnacker recalls: 'Just after Monsieur Dior showed his last collection, [Dior] said, "Raymonde, I'd like to tell the press that thirty-five of those models were completely designed by Yves Saint Laurent."...'
...Dior based much of his Libre line on two classic items of clothing[:]...the vareuse, or fishermen's smock,...and...the khaki bush jacket
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)Yves Saint Laurent...at the age of 21 found himself perched upon the multi-million franc edifice of the most influential fashion house in the world....[W]ith his first collection,...he launched the [T]rapeze line....'Saint Laurent has saved France!' said the French headlines. 'The great Dior tradition will continue!'
For the nation's largest industry, the well-being of its most prominent couture house was of great social and economic importance....Saint Laurent's first collection...was a resounding success.
Saint Laurent's [T]rapeze line, backbone of his successful first collection for Dior.
Saint Laurent's first collection introduced a new silhouette, the wedge-shaped 'Trapeze'...
...[W]ith his first collection,...[Saint Laurent] launched the [T]rapeze line – not too different from Dior's A line, but just different enough.
Dior produces his new A line, a triangle widened from a small head and shoulders to a full pleated or stiffened hem.
Dior's...'A' line consisted of coats, suits and dresses flared out into wide triangles from narrow shoulders. The waistline was the cross bar of the A and could be positioned either under the bust in an Empire manner or low down on the hips.
The dress sloped down from the shoulders to a widened hem just below the knee, maintaining a definite geometric line through precise tailoring.
The fashion house of Christian Dior...has bestowed the ultimate glory on...Marc Bohan. It has been announced that Bohan will replace...Yves Saint Laurent as chief designer.
He received financial backing from a variety of sources, including a businessman from Georgia and the cosmetics company Charles of the Ritz...
...Saint Laurent...was joined by many of the staff from Dior when he opened his own house.
Approximately 25 [Dior] employees...have gone to work for St. Laurent.
Yves St. Laurent turned out to be the best suitmaker since Chanel. Mostly of tweed in off-beat color combinations, his suits had a crisp, young style...St. Laurent quickly sold out his first batch of suits to store buyers...
...Saint Laurent...launched the brassière dress, an early example of the cut-out theme.
An outstanding success was scored by Yves St. Laurent...St. Laurent's long, middy-like tunic, pear-shaped draped skirts and circus-pony headdresses on high coiffures were seen as fashion prophecies for 1963.
...St. Laurent, although he produced a very good collection, did not say anything new.
Called a prodigy...in 1957...[h]is success was not repeated until now....His first collection was less than a smash but his second...has lifted him to the pinnacle of Paris couture.
St. Laurent's second collection for his own house was a glittering tour de force, greeted with the special kind of emotional fervour reserved for such occasions.
...[B]uyers are...acclaiming the Givenchy and St. Laurent showings as the great collections of the season...
...Yves Saint Laurent's second collection...established him firmly on a par with the Paris masters...
...his black ciré satins with ruffs of black mink, his rajah coats and tubular dresses worn with turbans and dark stockings, his long pulled-down tops and barrel skirts, all worn with rich dark jewellery.
Saint Laurent's...pullover tunics somewhat like a fisherman's overblouse...one in pale-grey satin, the most elegant fisherman's smock in the world, with sleeves gathered to a wide yoke...
For the winter of 1962, in his second collection at his own house, he taught the fashion world that smocks and pea jackets could be the height of chic.
The Left Bank look makes good now that Saint Laurent finds his independent fashion identity...
His autumn [1962] collection brings the Left Bank into the couture with total success.
Saint Laurent's 1960 beat look was belatedly adapted: Samuel Robery showed simple leather shifts, Scaasi presented black alligator trousers, Ellen Brooke used black lacquered alligator for windbreaker jackets, and mock alligator was chosen by Modelia for polo coats and by David Kidd for short coats.
The most important coat to come out of the couture this year [1962] was Saint Laurent's 'pea jacket.' Modelled on the sailor's traditional double-breasted garment and already an American classic, it now gained lasting international popularity.
Most Paris originals are first seen at high prices, gradually filter down to low. St. Laurent's famous pea jacket is an exception. He copied it from the humble sailor's coat...
From Paris,...Saint Laurent's painter shirt and peasant's smock...
By day the country look for the city was typified by St. Lauret's tweed smock worn de rigueur with heavy, textured stockings and walking shoes.
...[B]oots by Roger Vivier wrapped the leg to mid-thigh.
Yves Saint Laurent's fall...1963...visored caps, black leather jerkins, and Roger Vivier's towering cuissardes [thigh-high boots] in black crocodile...gave what [the Daily Mail's Iris] Ashley called 'a real space girl effect...'
In his Autumn-Winter 1966 collection, Yves Saint Laurent introduced his most iconic piece: the tuxedo....[T]he Saint Laurent Rive Gauche version was a success. The label's younger clientele was quick to purchase it, making the tuxedo a classic. Saint Laurent would go on to include it in each of his collections until 2002.
Niki de Saint-Phalle, an American artist living in [France], has had the best influence of all on Saint Laurent...Miss Saint-Phalle...always wears trouser suits with...boots....Now Saint Laurent has copied her 'black tie' trouser suit in velvet and in wool....In wool, it has a very ruffly white shirt, a big black bow at the neck, a wide cummerbund of satin, and satin stripes down the rather wide pants. It is worn with...satin boots.
The newest Vivier shoe – some will be seen...in Yves Saint Laurent's collection – is called 'le socle.' It only means a thick platform sole. Socle is the French word for pedestal....Even when he designs a boot that covers the leg...there is often the platform sole...
Yves Saint Laurent first introduced the safari jacket in his 1967 runway shows. However, it was a one-off design created for a photo-essay for Vogue (Paris) the following year that made the design famous and quickly turned it into a classic.
Saint Laurent frequently visited London during the sixties to find inspiration in the boutiques on King's Road.
It was a decade in which the...rich stole their fads from hippies who rejected materialism.
Yves...wandered into Central Park during a New York visit, remained, bemused, enchanted by the hippie scene. Who knows how this may affect the world's fashion scene.
...Yves Saint Laurent has endorsed...the hippie mood...
...[I]t was Yves St. Laurent who had the courage to say, 'We all needed Courrèges...He woke us up.'
...[T]here are moments...when Yves Saint Laurent...strains too hard to convince the world how much he is hand-to-hand and eye-to-eye with the very young....[T]he pop art dresses in Saint Laurent's new fall collection...should have been...saved as a private joke for a few friends...Saint Laurent may have just discovered Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, but others did quite long ago.
...his first book, "La Vilaine Lulu"...published by Claude Tchou in Paris...Saint Laurent's sketches and text show the adventures of Nasty Lulu, who...has a horrid vocabulary[,]...whose confidant is an English-speaking white rat[,]...[who] drinks in the morning, sets fire to houses when people are inside them, and seems to loathe mothers....Lulu is a sadist....He began doodling Lulu...[i]n 1956...
...[I]n 1967, the writer Françoise Sagan encouraged Saint Laurent to publish Lulu's adventures with the Éditions Tchou. This album has been republished three times.
Take the anti‐establishment 60's...: the untamed manes of the flower children, the faded jeans of the affluence‐rejecting hippies, the discarded bras of the women's liberation movement, the knee‐freeing skirts..., and the street‐imitating gear of the radical chic...share...an antifashion attitude that became...powerful and pervasive...
Five years ago [1966], St. Laurent went through what he describes as 'a horrible crisis'...He saw the young generation shaking off old taboos in clothes, in outlook, in behavior, creating a new environment. He desperately wanted to be part of it...'I began to realize that fashion can come from anywhere,' he says. 'Daily life is where a clothes designer belongs today'.
...Yves Saint Laurent is probably the activist of the French couture – he understands how young people feel, knows how they want to look.
Yves Saint Laurent was the first of the couturiers to grasp the change in the attitudes of women...to clothes. First, he picked up inspiration from what people wore on the street, not eschewing denim, poplin and patchwork leather.
He owes his success, the full flowering of his talent, to the street and he knows it. Saint Laurent came to power in fashion during the 'sixties, when the class-compartmentalized and ethnic dialects of dress had begun to merge feverishly....[E]verybody's clothes...were...claiming values, politics...Saint Laurent's eclectic, empirical desire to transform the street's own ideas into something similar, better, touched by genius proved the triumphant form of modernism.
During the student upheavals in Paris in May [1968], [Saint Laurent] saw the girls and boys behind the barricades dressed...in pants...'They looked beautiful...,' he said...'Fashion is not only couture....Events are more important.'...[In] his last Paris couture collection, shown in July,...[p]ants outfits overshadowed more conventional attire.
In the late 1960's, [Saint Laurent] watched the student riots in Paris and came up with the pants suit, which everyone is still wearing.
Leading Paris couturier Yves St. Laurent, from whose influence the vogue for trousers could be said to have stemmed, continued to promote them in his spring and fall [1969] collections.
Pants...have the endorsement of...Yves Saint Laurent, who devoted a good part of his last Paris collection to them and now is selling them like blue jeans...The wider cut to the legs has won many adherents.
Saint Laurent...helped put women all over the world in pants.
Paris has finally approved of the pants suit, first started by Andre Courrèges in his spring collection....
...[Yves Saint Laurent] mused on the changes in fashion since he went to work for Christian Dior...'That was the time when everybody wanted to look very rich,' he said. 'Now [1968] I think it is the contrary....'
Until 10 years ago [1961], street clothes were very formal. Now that's all changed.
Now, Yves has designed his first, small collection of ready-to-wear clothes for men...
A photograph of a nude Yves Saint Laurent...was used for the first YSL eau de toilette for men, Pour Homme, advertising campaign in 1971.
The presence of one designer — Yves Saint Laurent — overshadows the collections.
...[H]is work...has been reflected in almost every showing of ready‐to‐wear designers...[O]ther designers have been borrowing liberally from him.
...[W]hen Saint Laurent gets behind a style, the world generally follows.
He is the most influential fashion designer in the world...
...Yves Saint Laurent...is now universally acknowledged roi de la mode [king of fashion].
...Yves Saint Laurent always knows exactly what we want at exactly the right time...
...Yves Saint Laurent...simply tunes into the mood of the times and reflects it in uncomplicated clothes.
Yves Saint Laurent['s]...clothes...are nice, clean, casual clothes to keep a woman looking calm and controlled as she moves through the anxieties of modern living.
The reason why he is the most copied designer in the world is because he looks at the way people live and the way they dress and then tries to make them look a little better.
...[I]t has been interesting to notice Karl Lagerfeld replacing Yves Saint Laurent as the favorite mentor of some American designers.
The most‐applauded collections...were those of the giants, Karl Lagerfeld for Chloe and Yves Saint Laurent.
An American survey in 1975...reported that [Jean] Muir and Saint Laurent were the most widely copied designers in the world.
In 1970, the women's movement began to take dress down an increasingly informal path. T-shirts, blue jeans, cutoffs, hiking boots, hair flowing freely...Women disposed of bras and freed their breasts under T-shirts or blue work shirts....Relaxed informality settled into the mainstream. In the '70s, political statements moved from buttons to...T-shirts.
Keeping up with fashion is being put down by busy, productive women who claim (a) they have no time for it, (b) it's a frivolous occupation, and (c) fashion is a conspiracy on the part of designers to persuade feather-headed women to keep pouring out money for clothes they do not really need but are made to feel they want.
...[I]n 1974,...Saint Laurent created a Russian-themed collection....Saint Laurent's collection featured full skirts that fell below the knees, thick sweaters, capes, quilted gold jackets, velvet and satin knickerbockers, long fur coats and matching fur hats, and a new, and very distinctive, style of knee-length fashion boot...loose-fitting...
Next fall's peasants, according to Saint Laurent, will wear boots and babushkas...
The noise about Saint Laurent's big silhouette and folkloric look served to enhance his reputation...
...Saint Laurent's peasant look...did not attempt to constrict the body.
...Yves Saint Laurent's glorified peasant collection...bouffant skirts, small waistlines and...luxury, paradoxically within a peasant silhouette....Though...there are corselet belts at the waistline, nothing is cinched in tightly.
Two of his great friends of the 'sixties died last year. Barely thirty, both represented the psychedelic breakaway of the 'sixties; both died tragically proving the breakaway in itself was not an answer.
Yves'[s] life-style is also in direct opposition to that of a few years back....Gone are the jeans and bare feet. Yves wears carefully pressed gabardine trousers, an immaculate shirt, a beige cashmere cardigan over his shoulders. Gone the long hair and beard.
Saint Laurent was the most successful and influential to combine the art of the couture with the economic realities of the prêt-à-porter....By the mid-seventies he had settled into the role of supreme ready-to-wear designer.
Yves St. Laurent stunned the fashion world this summer with the announcement that he was abandoning the haute couture of Paris....St. Laurent will continue to design clothes for a few private clients.
...Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent... decided to boycott the traditional January couture shows. They agreed to present their collections in April, when the ready‐to‐wear houses show their lines.
'I feel a new appreciation for the almost lost art of the artisan, the ones who could not exist without the Couture – the artisans must not be lost'.
'At one point, I was very tempted to design for mass manufacture, to quit the couture, but it was too late. I had too much responsibility to the people who had helped me establish my maison. I couldn't abandon them'.
Three concerns tried to throw in their lot with ready-to‐wear, but Robert Ricci, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent reneged. When it came couture time, they ran up a few more styles and held couture shows.
Paris: On the Right Bank, Saint Laurent can be seen in all his glory, worn by women of every age and nationality...
This was Saint Laurent's annus mirabilis. In a feast of theatrics and colour he showed his first famous Carmen dresses....Saint Laurent's autumn collection burst forth with romantic fantasy. For the day, he showed a collarless, slightly square jacket with Tyrolean fastenings, either plain or with a subtle stripe, worn over a dirndl skirt and Russian blouse, lying flat on the collarbone and simply tied. A dramatic shawl, Russian-style fur-trimmed hat and a hooded, velvet cape completed the look. Trousers were very narrow, and everything was worn with Cossack-style, baggy boots.
'YSL's...mannequin...got ovations every time she sauntered out on the runway in another version of the spencer jacket'.
Yves Saint Laurent's man‐tailored suit, introduced in January 1978, put emphasis on bigger, built-out shoulders. American designers simultaneously backed the built‐up look and started adding shoulder apparatus of their own.
What Saint Laurent sprang on the fashion world last January when he introduced man‐tailored suit jackets with shoulders squared out with padding...has now become staple fashion in Italy, France and America.
...Saint Laurent...confirmed huge shoulders, puffed sleeves to emphasize width further...
Saint Laurent emphasized suits that were squared at the top and tapering to the hem, like a triangle standing on its point.
Karl Lagerfeld..., Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro and Hubert de Givenchy...continued with their versions of the rather aggressive broad-shouldered silhouette...
His classics,...he says, 'are the modern things and they are for the future. They are now as good as they can be....The basic things have been made. Now we can stop'.
Yves Saint Laurent has retreated into an autocritical contemplation of his years as the established 'No. 1' of Paris fashion. These days, he is creating refined and rethought versions of his legendary look.
...Saint Laurent may have reached the point where he feels that he has made his basic contribution to fashion and that now, like Chanel who kept on and on with her famous suit — he wants to reinforce his legend.
Saint Laurent says the day of big fashion changes is over. What he cares about is refining the classic, the basics, perfecting what he has already put into the fashion vernacular.
Yves Saint Laurent, the acknowledged king of the status quo in Europe, may have been a revolutionary in his early days...Now, however, St. Laurent has imposed a paralyzing primness...that suggests a retreat to the philistine cathedral of acceptable good taste.
The saddest moment of the spring ready-to-wear collections was the hackneyed offering of Yves Saint Laurent. What a pathetic decline for the former king of world fashion, who dominated design for...twenty years. One couldn't believe that the same man was responsible for what was paraded before the buyers and press. The loss of Saint Laurent's legendary color mixing, the rehash of decade-old designs, the afterthought accessories, left the audience confounded. One wanted to believe that Saint Laurent was not involved....[H]e appeared to have lost a very rare gift – his creative talent.
When did he first do the Mondrian styles? When was the first smoking jacket? How about the first tiered challis printed baby dress, the first cowboy styles, the first ruffled peasant styles? If you didn't remember exactly, it didn't matter, since the current versions, while new, look familiar enough to be the original versions.
...Saint Laurent revived things from past collections to assure his customers that they can keep on wearing his styles no matter what the year.
Yves Saint Laurent shows his signature timeless classics in new and original versions...
In the 1960s,...materialism was briefly out of style.
...the excessive riches and embarrassing prices...of the Eighties.
...[H]istorical...revivals...celebrated Proustian opulence for the new rich of the Eighties.
There is no attempt to mimic street fashions, which the couture tried during the miniskirt years. There isn't too much concern with practicality. If the bouffant skirts with their layers of petticoats can't fit into a compact car, it is understood that their wearers travel by limousine. If the jeweled dresses require a lady's maid and a bodyguard, it is assumed that they are available....Givenchy calls his dresses Proustian...
The Reagan influence wafted through the major cities like heavy perfume. Where the young had once been the apple of the fashion eye, the elders took over, wearing expensive suits and ball gowns. And youth followed the example. In its way, nothing said more about fashion than all those 15-year-olds in wing collars and black ties swimming like well-bred minnows in the wake of stately taffeta.
Saint Laurent...knows just how to put the newly rich into a flawless uniform that transcends national and aesthetic taste.
Designers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Hubert de Givenchy simply picked dramatic traditional shapes, made them in the most opulent fabrics and embellished them with furs, feathers and jewels.
Givenchy's [clothes] are always the essence of luxury, even though nowadays they often contain some outfits strikingly similar to those Saint Laurent showed a season before.
Both Valentino and de la Renta showed collections in the formal rich society-lady style.
Sharp, daytime tailoring...distinguished the collections of Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Valentino and Ungaro. Suits were styled with wide revers and shoulders above tiny, cinched waists.
...[T]he tight, black leather skirt is a spinoff from Yves Saint Laurent...
[A] straight black skirt...that stops above the knee would put you in the camp with Yves Saint Laurent...All the designers like the skirt in leather (YSL did it first at least a year ago)...
Bill Blass insists that in spite of the state of the economy, his customers want rich, opulent clothes. So he has made his things a little richer, a little more opulent.
In Paris, the couture or made-to-order part of the fashion industry brought out dazzingly extravagant collections...
...[E]ven though one of the jackets in the 1984 [Chanel] collection was priced at $75,000, the house could not make them fast enough.
Saint Laurent's...ready-to-wear efforts have been slowly sagging season after season.
Shoulder pads have collapsed in many of the collections, though Yves Saint Laurent makes it all right with the fashion world to keep on wearing them...
...Lagerfeld...says:...'You cannot hide behind the excesses of...huge shoulders'.
Niki de Saint-Phalle, an American artist living in [France], has had the best influence of all on Saint Laurent...Miss Saint-Phalle...always wears trouser suits with...boots....Now Saint Laurent has copied her 'black tie' trouser suit in velvet and in wool....In wool, it has a very ruffly white shirt, a big black bow at the neck, a wide cummerbund of satin, and satin stripes down the rather wide pants. It is worn with...satin boots.
...Khadija...became a highlight at Saint Laurent's couture show. Khadija, 1984's Miss Kenya,...comes from Nairobi. Her elegance, drama, and modernity attracted Saint Laurent, a designer who is...continuously inspired by...African models.