Yves Saint Laurent

Quite simply, Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) is one of the greatest names in fashion history. Along with Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, he was part of a couturier triumvirate that epitomized the best of twentieth-century fashion and style. A prodigious sketcher, he was never an “inventor” of styles, nor was he a master craftsman. Instead, like Chanel before him, Saint Laurent was a modernist who re-contextualized many items of functional clothing, such as safari jackets and men’s tuxedos, into chic and feminine wardrobe staples. Saint Laurent also produced sweepingly exotic and romantic clothes inspired by such diverse sources as Russian ballet or the demimonde of the Belle Epoque. Few couturiers could match Saint Laurent’s blend of perfectly proportioned cuts and brilliant color combinations.

Although he was known to the world at large by his initials—YSL—the designer was born Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent in Oran, Algeria. A precocious talent, he moved to Paris to pursue a fashion career. When he was just seventeen, Saint Laurent was hired as Christian Dior’s assistant; a mere four years later, following Dior’s sudden death, he was named head of Dior’s house. While his first collection was a triumph, subsequent seasons were viewed as too avant-garde. After a traumatic stint in the army and his firing from Dior, Saint Laurent opened his own fashion house in 1961 with Pierre Bergé, his longtime business partner.

His ready-to-wear line, Rive Gauche, which debuted in 1966, set the template for other French couturiers, while for four decades, until his retirement in 2002, Saint Laurent changed the course of fashion. He created a number of landmark styles: his odes to art, from Piet Mondrian shift dresses in 1965 to his 1980 Picasso collection; his Le Smoking tailored tuxedo suit in 1966; his spring 1971 collection, inspired by 1940s fashion; and his Ballets Russes (1976–77) and Chinese (1977–78) collections. Saint Laurent was also noted for his use of ethnic models at his runway shows and for the bevy of inspiring women—from Betty Catroux to Catherine Deneuve—who were enmeshed in his designing life.

So celebrated was Saint Laurent during his lifetime that, in 1983, he was the first living fashion designer to have a monographic exhibition of his work organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While they are more common today, such exhibitions were controversial at the time.