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Yves Saint Laurent (designer)

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This article is about the fashion designer. For the clothing brand, see Yves Saint Laurent (brand).
Yves Saint Laurent
File:YvesSaintLaurent.jpg
Yves Saint Laurent in the 1950s
BornAugust 1 1936
Oran, Algeria
DiedJune 1, 2008(2008-06-01) (aged 71)
Paris, France
NationalityFrench
LabelYves Saint Laurent

Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent (August 1 1936 – June 1 2008)[1][2] was a French fashion designer who was considered 'one of the greatest figures in French fashion in the 20th century' (Daily Telegraph 2/6/2008). In 1985, in Caroline Rennolds Milbank's book Couture: The Great Fashion Designers, she wrote, "The most consistently celebrated and influential designer of the past twenty-five years, Yves Saint Laurent can be credited with both spurring the couture's rise from its Sixties ashes and with finally rendering ready-to-wear reputable".

Biography

The son of an insurance company president, Yves Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria. He inherited his fashion sense from his mother and his mother's friends. He studied first at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, but felt frustrated by the syllabus so left after a few months. Saint Laurent left home at the age of 17 to work for the French designer Christian Dior. Following Dior's death in 1957, Yves, at the age of 21, was put in charge of the effort of saving the Dior house from financial ruin. His work for the 1958 Dior collection earned him international acclaim for his work that would come to be known as the trapeze dress, which would be integral to fashion during the 1960s. [3]

Shortly after this success, he was conscripted to serve in the French Army during the Algerian War of Independence. After 20 days, the stress of being hazed by fellow soldiers led the fragile Saint Laurent to be institutionalized in a French mental hospital, where he underwent psychiatric treatment, including electroshock therapy, for a nervous breakdown.[4]

In 1962, in the wake of his nervous breakdown, Saint Laurent was released from Dior and he and his lover, Pierre Bergé, started their own fashion house with funding from Atlanta millionaire J. Mack Robinson.[1] The couple split romantically in 1976 but remained business partners.[5] During the 1960s and 1970s, the firm popularized fashion trends such as the beatnik look, safari jackets for men and women, tight pants and tall, thigh-high boots, including the creation of arguably the most famous classic tuxedo suit for women in 1966, Le Smoking suit. He also started mainstreaming the idea of wearing silhouettes from the 1920s, '30s and '40s. He was the first, in 1966, to popularize ready-to-wear in an attempt to democratize fashion, with Rive Gauche and the boutique of the same name.[6] He was also the first designer to use black models in his runway shows.[7]

Among his muses were Loulou de la Falaise, the daughter of a French marquis and an Anglo-Irish fashion model; Betty Catroux, the half-Brazilian daughter of an American diplomat and wife of a French decorator; Talitha Pol-Getty, who died of drug overdose in 1971; Catherine Deneuve, the French actress; Nicole Dorier, a top model of the House between 1978 and 1983 when she became one of the master's assistants dedicated to organizing his runway shows and then the "memory" of his house when it became a museum, the Guinean-born Senegalese supermodel Katoucha Niane, the daughter of writer Djibril Tamsir Niane; and supermodel Laetitia Casta, who was the bride in his shows from 1997 until 2002.

In 1983, Saint Laurent became the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a solo exhibition. In 2001, he was awarded the rank of Commander of the Légion d'Honneur by French president Jacques Chirac. He retired in 2002 and became increasingly reclusive.

He also created a foundation with Pierre Bergé in Paris to trace the history of the house of YSL, complete with 15,000 objects and 5,000 pieces of clothing.

He died on June 1 2008 from the effects of brain cancer, at his residence in Paris.[8] According to The New York Times,[2] a few days before he died, Saint Laurent and Bergé were joined in a same-sex civil union known as a "civil pact of solidarity" in France.

YSL's body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in Marrakech, Morocco in a botanical garden that he often visited to find influence and refuge. [9] His partner Bergé said during the funeral service: “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.”

References

  1. ^ http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=573020
  2. ^ livenews
  3. ^ Anne Szustek, Fashion Icon Yves Saint Laurent Dies at 71, findingDulcinea.com, June 2, 2008.
  4. ^ The Biography Channel - Yves Saint Laurent Biography
  5. ^ Cole, Shaun (2002), "Saint Laurent, Yves", glbtq.com, retrieved 2007-08-25 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help).
  6. ^ Alicia Drake. The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris. Little, Brown and Company, 2006. p.49.
  7. ^ Iman hits back at a world where the fashion is always for white The Independent (London) | Find Articles at BNET.com
  8. ^ "Tributes for Yves Saint Laurent". BBC News. 2008-06-02. Retrieved 2008-06-02.
  9. ^ Pfeiffer, Tom (2008-06-11). ""Yves Saint Laurent's Ashes Scattered In Marrakesh"". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-06-11.

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yves Saint Laurent.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Yves Saint Laurent.



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