"For a long time now, I have believed that fashion was not only supposed to make women beautiful, but to reassure them, to give them confidence, to allow them to come to terms with themselves."
- Yves Saint Laurent
The fashion world has recently lost a legend. Last Sunday Yves Saint Laurent died at the age of 71 in his home in Paris, after a long period of ill health. The king of fashion designers was born in 1936 and grew up in Oran, Algeria. He left for Paris at 17 where he showed his drawings to the director of French Vogue at the time Michel de Brunhoff. Brunhoff quickly published several of his designs. Following a stint at fashion school he worked for Christian Dior. When Dior died in 1957 he took over as art director, at the age of 21, and launched his first collection for the company, Ligne Trapeze, that year. The line was a huge success and won him a Neiman Marcus Oscar. Following some time in the National Service, in 1962 he created his own fashion house with Pierre Bergé. Bergé says that Coco Chanel "gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent gave them power." In 1966 he created his legendary smoking suit and in 1968 the jumpsuit. He designed for women, giving them clothing that would represent their freedom and elegance. By tying freedom and elegance into his pieces he managed to reflect the change of the role of women. His last ready-to-wear collection was in October 1998 for the Rive Gauche label that he created more than 30 years earlier, but he continued his couture lines. Briefly Alber Elbaz was designer but the position was taken over by Tom Ford in 1999, making the line a huge success, bigger then it was to begin with that is. At Laurent’s last show in 2002 he took his final bow while his long-time muse, Catherine Deneuve sang. Laurent battled depression, drug and alcohol addiction and when he retired in 2002, he said, "I tell myself that I created the wardrobe of the contemporary woman, that I participated in the transformation of my times.” Many of his peers credit him with their inspiration to become designers. They all view this loss as a great one to the fashion world and his life and creative genius left a huge dent in the fashion world. He, after all is credited with single hand idly changing the way women dress. As said best by Michael Kors, “the first designer who understood modern life—a woman who was on the move and powerful and sexy.”
Official Website: www.ysl.com
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