The lifework of Yves Saint-Laurent

Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint-Laurent was born on August 1st, 1936 in Oran, Algeria, as the son of wealthy parents.
When he was a young guy he had already been fascinated by fashion, and so he went to Paris in 1953, entered a competition – sponsored by the International Wood Secretariat – and won the first price for a cocktail dress. At that time Yves was 19 years old.
After finishing the A-level he moved to Paris in 1954, where he visited a design course at the school of the “Chambre syndicate de la Couture”. One year later Christian Dior became attentive of the young talent and hired him as his design-assistant and after Dior’s death he became chief-designer of Dior’s house.

On January 30th, 1958 Laurent presented his first international collection, the “TRAPEZ-LINE”. It was a success and made him the new Parisian fashion star in one night. “Saint-Laurent saved France” said a French newspaper with reference to the economical situation of France. At this time half of the French fashion exports had been realised by the house of Dior. The enthusiasm about this collection was boundless.
Yves Saint-Laurent was a perfect successor for the house of Dior. Laurent continued the basic ideas and concepts of Dior referring to the way women should be dressed and how to respect women’s nature. Yves even went beyond this. Through his new style – the TRAPEZ-LINE – women looked younger and more casual. This new style was more comfortable because strict lines and the waistline were left out.
In 1960 Laurent shocked his customers with the “BEAT LOOK” – clothes which came from the street, black leather jackets, turtleneck sweaters and fur-trimmed hems.
In 1961 the house of Dior split up with Saint-Laurent and hired a new designer called Marc Bohan.
Together with his business and lifetime companion Pierre Berge he opened his own house in 1961 and became the biggest rival of the house of Dior. On January 29th Laurent presented the first collection under his own name. It was a success. People were amazed, loved and admired him. They said that a genius was born.

Saint-Laurent was a work-alcoholic, so he created four collections in one year and the particular thing was that every time he created a new style. these were extremely varying and his presentations were always an experiment for both him and the audiences.
Yves Saint-Laurent’s basic idea was to break down the barriers of design, the everyday illusion of combinations of colours and clothes. He was the first designer who combined orange with pink and red, violet with yellow, black with brown. He had the right feeling for this.
Yves was a revolutionary. In his clothes you can find styles of artists like Picasso, Warhol and in 1965 he created a dress with Mondrian dessins. The life on the streets and the arts were the strongest influences on his work. His most surprising creation was the “SMOKING FOR WOMEN” in 1966. He took the basic cut of the male wardrobe and changed them into female lines and also gave them a touch of eroticism.

After that he created the “TRANSPARENT LOOK”, combined with chiffon which had a romantic touch. In 1968 he created the classic “SAFARI JACKET”.
Furthermore Yves Saint-Laurent took ideas from the traditional costumes of different countries. He took the basic cut of a Russian peasant dress and combined it with embroidery, braids, voluminous sleeves, accessories and fantastic colours. This collection was called “COSSACK” or “RUSSIAN”. Yves loved to play with colours and always tried to vary his style.

His idea was that you change your style whenever you wanted with the effect that you always felt good and loved to wear the different styles of clothes.
Even though he did a lot of new things, broke down the old traditional way to design, he received a lot of praise on the one hand, but on the other hand he was badly criticised by people and the newspapers. These contrasting bathings in feelings of enthusiasm and sadness were hard for Yves to cope with. He fought against depressions, alcohol abuse suicidal tendencies and drugs.
In the middle of the 70ies he was in the American hospital in Paris for the first detoxication treatment and this was not to be the last one. But even this could not destroy his image and in 1983/84 New York dedicated him a “retrospective” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By Anne Koreuber and Sandra Reske

Sources

Lehnert, Gertrud: Geschichte der Mode des 20. Jahrhunderts. Köln: Könemann, 2000.
O'Hara Callan, Geogina: Dictionary of Fashion and Fashion Designers. London: Thames and Hudson, 1998.
Seeling, Charlotte: Mode - das Jahrhundert der Designer. Köln: Könemann, 1999.

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