With Pierre Bergé, his then-lover who became his lifelong business partner and friend, the designer founded Yves Saint Laurent YSL to encompass prêt-à-porter, or ready-to-wear. He shook the traditional couture clientele to its core with youthful silhouettes and styles like the A-line trapeze dress that hung with seeming effortlessness from the shoulders, the antithesis of the pinched waists and molded skirts that had been all the rage after the deprivations of World War II.Īfter a mandated spell in the torturous French military, Saint Laurent suffered a nervous breakdown and was dismissed by Dior in 1962. A mere slip of a youth, the 21-year-old Saint Laurent was nevertheless up to the challenge. Surprisingly soon thereafter, Dior publicly chose Saint Laurent as his successor, which sadly proved prescient when the fashion legend died unexpectedly, in 1957. Just two years later, in 1955, his remarkable sketches were shown to Christian Dior, then the world’s reigning couturier, who hired him immediately. Saint Laurent also consistently used Black models, like Mounia, Iman and Naomi Campbell, and he drew endless inspiration from different ethnicities and cultures, in no small part because of his Algerian roots.īorn to French parents in Oran, Algeria, in 1936, Saint Laurent went to Paris at age 17 to study fashion at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

Many of his designs are today considered timeless classics. By blurring gender-specific design, he empowered individual style while creating a scissor-sharp fashion aesthetic of sensual ease and beauty. Using traditional menswear fabrics and designs for women, Saint Laurent also literally cross-dressed, giving men and women alike chic pant suits, elegant tuxedo jackets and urban safari gear. He was the first couturier to open boutiques for both men and women. Saint Laurent was the first to launch a ready-to-wear label, YSL Rive Gauche Prêt-à-Porter. The book showcases hundreds of spectacular clothes, details, accessories, beauty looks, and set designs.French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent pioneered “cross-design” in fashion, taking inspiration from street trends to modernize haute couture.

This definitive publication opens with a concise history of the house before exploring the collections themselves, organized chronologically and ending in 2002, the year that Yves Saint Laurent retired from the company he started.Įach collection is introduced by a short text elucidating its influences and highlights and is illustrated with carefully curated catwalk images, each season styled as the designer intended and worn by the world’s top models. From Yves Saint Laurent’s revolutionary and enduringly popular tuxedo suit for women, le smoking, to iconic art-inspired creations, from Mondrian dresses to precious Van Gogh embroidery and the famous Ballets Russes collection, the house’s haute couture line has been hugely influential in changing the way modern women dress. A spectacular visual journey through 40 years of haute couture from one of the best-known and most trend-setting brands in fashionįounded in 1962 by Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé, the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent has for more than half a century been synonymous with excellence in modern and iconic style.

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