Yves Saint Laurent standing alone after attending Dior's funeral. (Photo by Loomis Dean)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1957
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent (1936 - 2008) gives his first interview since succeeding the late Christian Dior, to a radio reporter in Paris, 1957. (Photo by Keystone)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1958
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent poses by the model schedule in the atelier of the House of Christian Dior, Paris, France, 1958. (Photo by Authenticated News)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1958
Victoria Station, London, UK
Yves Saint Laurent (center) and a group of fashion models on arrival at Victoria Station, London, bound for a show of his collection at Blenheim Palace. (Photo by Central Press)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1959
Yves Saint Laurent, French couturier, and Tessa Beaumont, dancer, at Dior's. September 1959. (Photo by Roger Viollet via Getty Images)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1960
Yves Saint Laurent and his models celebrate the unveiling of his second spring collection at the House of Dior, 28th January 1960. (Photo by Express)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1960
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent working on new designs at the House of Dior in Paris. (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1961
Paris, France
Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent. Paris, Alhambra. December, 1961. (Photo by Roger Viollet)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1963
New York, NY, USA
Catherine Deneuve and French designer Yves Saint Laurent circa 1983 in New York. (Photo by PL Gould)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1965
Yves Saint Laurent working with a fashion model at his own fashion house in Paris. (Photo by Reg Lancaster)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1965
Paris, France
Yves Saint Lauren working at his own fashion house in Paris. (Photo by Reg Lancaster)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1966
Yves Saint Laurent
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1966
Yves Saint Laurent (R) talking with client Mrs. Stanley (Adele) Donen at his boutique. (Photo by Pierre Boulat)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1968
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent poses with American actress Lauren Bacall and her daughter Leslie, at a showing of his latest collection in Paris. (Photo by Keystone)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1968
Yves Saint Laurent poses outdoors in a leather trenchcoat and sunglasses in the CBS special The Paris Collections Fall Fashion Preview, June 26, 1968. (Photo by CBS Photo)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1969
Yves Saint Laurent with two fashion models, Betty Catroux (left) and Loulou de la Falaise, outside his Rive Gauche shop. (Photo by John Minihan)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1971
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent, seated in the living room of his home in Paris, wearing a gray leisure jacket and pants over a blue shirt and tie. (Horst P. Horst)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1974
Yves St. Laurent and Maria Schiano (Photo by Ron Galella)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1975
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé (left) attend the first play by the writer François-Marie Banier at the Modern Theatre in Paris, September 1975. (Photo by Richard Melloul)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1978
12 Fulton St, New York, NY 10038, United States Opened: 1967
Yves Saint Laurent w. socialite Nan Kempner during a party for launching his new perfume called Opium, held aboard the sailboat Peking at the South Street Seaport Museum. (Photo by Robin Platzer)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1981
Catherine Deneuve poses with fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent (1936 - 2008) in a photo-shoot by German photographer Helmut Newton (foreground), 16th November 1981. (Photo by Bruno Bachelet)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1982
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent in his Paris studio, January 1982. (Photo by John Downing)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1982
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent in the office of his Paris studio, January 1982. (Photo by John Downing)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1982
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent in the office of his Paris studio, January 1982. (Photo by John Downing)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1982
Paris, France
Yves Saint Laurent in the office of his Paris studio, January 1982. (Photo by John Downing)
Gallery of Yves Saint Laurent
1994
Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge (Photo by Ron Galella)
Yves Saint Laurent (1936 - 2008) gives his first interview since succeeding the late Christian Dior, to a radio reporter in Paris, 1957. (Photo by Keystone)
Yves Saint Laurent (center) and a group of fashion models on arrival at Victoria Station, London, bound for a show of his collection at Blenheim Palace. (Photo by Central Press)
Yves Saint Laurent poses with American actress Lauren Bacall and her daughter Leslie, at a showing of his latest collection in Paris. (Photo by Keystone)
Yves Saint Laurent poses outdoors in a leather trenchcoat and sunglasses in the CBS special The Paris Collections Fall Fashion Preview, June 26, 1968. (Photo by CBS Photo)
Yves Saint Laurent, seated in the living room of his home in Paris, wearing a gray leisure jacket and pants over a blue shirt and tie. (Horst P. Horst)
Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé (left) attend the first play by the writer François-Marie Banier at the Modern Theatre in Paris, September 1975. (Photo by Richard Melloul)
12 Fulton St, New York, NY 10038, United States Opened: 1967
Yves Saint Laurent w. socialite Nan Kempner during a party for launching his new perfume called Opium, held aboard the sailboat Peking at the South Street Seaport Museum. (Photo by Robin Platzer)
Catherine Deneuve poses with fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent (1936 - 2008) in a photo-shoot by German photographer Helmut Newton (foreground), 16th November 1981. (Photo by Bruno Bachelet)
Yves Saint Laurent was a French businessman and fashion designer. He was one of the greatest and most celebrated icons of the fashion industry. In 1966, he launched his own fashion labels, where his adaptations of tuxedos for women garnered him fame. He was the first living designer to receive a solo exhibition in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983.
Background
Yves Saint Laurent was born on August 1, 1936, in Oran, French Algeria, to Charles Saint Laurent, a lawyer and insurance broker, and his wife, Lucienne Mathieu. His father was a lawyer and insurance broker, his mother a woman of great personal style. He grew up in a villa by the Mediterranean with his two younger sisters, Michelle and Brigitte.
Though Algeria was on the brink of the violent War of Independence, the designer remembered the city as "a cosmopolitan place made up of merchants from everywhere and especially somewhere else… a city that sparkled in a multicolored patchwork under the calm North African sun."
Education
From a young age, Yves Saint Laurent was a nervous child and mostly remained sick. He was bullied relentlessly at school for being effeminate, and it took a huge toll on his mental well-being. He had a keen interest in creating intricate paper dolls, and by his early teen years, he was designing dresses for his mother and sisters.
After completing his secondary education in Algeria, he moved to Paris to pursue a career in designing theatrical costumes and women’s fashion. He briefly studied design at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, leaving because he said he was bored.
In 1953, Saint Laurent’s drawings caught the attention of Michel de Brunhoff, who was editor-in-chief of French Vogue at the time. Brunhoff showed the sketches to Christian Dior and introduced Yves to Dior, who hired him on the spot. Yves quickly rose through the ranks at the fashion house. At 19, he became Dior’s second in command. Following Dior’s sudden death in 1957, the 21-year-old Yves found himself as the creative director of Dior - his designs in 1958 are said to have saved the brand from financial ruin.
In 1960, Saint-Laurent was drafted into the army - again in Algeria. Thin mental organization of the young man could not stand the strict regime of the army, he had a nervous breakdown and he was sent home. Then he was treated in a psychiatric clinic and after leaving there met with philanthropist Pierre Berger, who helped the designer to win the court from Dior - fashion house unilaterally broke the contract with Saint-Laurent and thus violated the terms of the contract, for which the young designer received a decent compensation and opened his fashion house.
Over the next two decades, Saint Laurent's designs sat atop the fashion world. Models and actresses gushed over his creations. He outfitted women in blazers and smoking jackets, and introduced attire like the pea coat to the runway. His signature pieces also included the sheer blouse and the jumpsuit. In 1966, he introduced Le Smoking, his legendary smoking suit. His other innovations include the sheer blouse (1966), and the jumpsuit (1968). Throughout the years, he continued to design both the YSL haute couture and pret-a-porter collections, continuously refining his timeless, elegant designs for sophisticated women.
In the ’70s, inspired by traditional Russian costume, he introduced the Haute peasant look. Among his greatest successes were his Mondrian collection in 1965, based on the Dutch artist’s gridlike paintings, and the "rich peasant" collection of 1976, which stirred so much interest that the Paris show was restaged in New York for his American admirers. During that time his enterprises expanded to include ready-to-wear licenses, accessories, household linens, fragrances (notably Y in 1964, Rive Gauche in 1971, and Opium in 1977), and men’s clothes in addition to his couture business.
By the 1980s, Saint Laurent was a true icon. He became the first designer to have a retrospective on his work at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Under the direction of Berge, who continued to manage Saint Laurent's firm even though the two had broken up in 1986, the fashion house flourished as a money-making venture. But Saint Laurent struggled. He became reclusive and fought addictions to alcohol and cocaine. Some in the fashion world complained that the designer's work had grown stale.
In the early 1990s, Saint Laurent found firmer footing. His designs were rediscovered by a fashion elite that had grown tired of the grunge movement that dominated the runways. Saint Laurent, too, seemed to have conquered his demons. By the end of the decade, with Saint Laurent slowing down his work pace, he and Berge had sold the company they'd started, netting the two men a fortune.
In 2002, he did his last show and took his final bow in the fashion industry. He sold the ready-to-wear business to Gucci for some $1 billion in 1999 and shut down the couture house when he retired in 2002.
Yves Saint Laurent was the first designer to make a voice in empowering ethnic minorities through his fashion label. He made sure fashion is available not only for men but also for all people regardless of race and gender. Saint Laurent was among the first designers to embrace black models on the runway, claiming such women as Iman, Katoucha Niane, and Dalma Callado as his muses. Saint Laurent often sought inspiration on the streets, bringing the Parisian beatnik style to couture runways and adapting the sailors’ peacoats he found in Army-Navy stores in New York into jackets that found their way into fashionable women’s wardrobes around the world.
Quotations:
"The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy."
"Dressing is a way of life."
"I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes."
"I have always believed that fashion was not made only to make women more beautiful, but also to reassure them, give them confidence."
"Fashions fade, style is eternal."
"Chanel freed women and I empowered them."
Personality
Yves was very fond of French bulldogs, he had four of them. Wherever the designer went, his dogs traveled with him. Yves called his first dog as Moujik but the dog died, poisoned with tablets of his master. Then there was Moujik II. The last dog of Saint-Laurent, Moujik IV, lived longer than his master.
Yves Saint Laurent struggled with substance abuse throughout his life but seemed to conquer his demons in his final years. He was a shy, introverted person who was known for his chain-smoking habit.
Interests
Theater
Artists
Loulou de la Falaise
Sport & Clubs
Soccer
Connections
Yves Saint Laurent had a long-term partner named Pierre Bergé. The two met in 1958 and started the House of Saint Laurent in 1961. The couple split in 1976 but remained on friendly terms.
Yves Saint Laurent: Style
Yves Saint Laurent’s signature style intertwines references from the art world with those of popular culture and social revolution. This retrospective book is the first to cover the forty years of Yves Saint Laurent and highlights the inventive character of the designer’s work.
2008
Loulou & Yves: The Untold Story of Loulou de La Falaise and the House of Saint Laurent
No one interested in fashion, style, or the high-flying intrigues of café society will want to miss Christopher Petkanas’s exuberantly entertaining oral biography Loulou & Yves: The Untold Story of Loulou de La Falaise and the House of Saint Laurent. Dauntless, "in the bone" style made Loulou de La Falaise one of the great fashion firebrands of the twentieth century.
2018
Yves Saint Laurent: A Biography
Yves Saint Laurent is arguably the greatest fashion designer of this century. World-renowned since the age of twenty-one, when he shot to fame as the savior of Christian Dior, he has changed the way that women dress with a series of innovations - from trouser suits and leather boots to peasant shawls and safari jackets - now regarded as classics.
1996
Yves Saint Laurent: A Moroccan Passion
In this facsimile of a handwritten leather-bound journal, Pierre Bergé, the longtime partner of Yves Saint Laurent, remembers their life together In this handwritten, personal memoir, Pierre Bergé recalls his life with Yves Saint Laurent in Morocco.