Yves Saint Laurent
French designer Yves Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria in 1936. Saint Laurent settled in Paris and attended the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture for three months. He won first prize for dresses in the Secrétariat de la Laine competition.
Michel de Brunhoff editor of the French edition of the essential fashion magazine Vogue, introduced him to the acclaimed fashion designer Christian Dior, who hired him as an assistant. During the next two years of apprenticeship and intense collaboration, a lasting complicity was established between the two men. When Dior suddenly died, Saint Laurent became his successor, and chief designer of the House of Dior.
He presented his first collection in January 1958, the “Trapeze line,” which propelled him onto the international scene with its enormous success. He was given the Neiman Marcus Award. That same year he met Pierre Bergé, who soon became his companion and business partner. In 1960, he launched the elegant "Beat Look," spotlighting knit sleeves, turtlenecks, and black leather jackets bordered in fur. In 1962, Saint Laurent left the House of Dior and opened his own fashion house.
In 1964, he launched a perfume for women called “Y,” and designed the costumes for Les chants de Mardoror and Rapsodie Espagnole, staged by Roland Petit, and the dresses for Claudia Cardinale in Blake Edward’s film The Pink Panther. Also in 1964, he designed the costumes for Le mariage de Figaro and Il faut passer par les nuages for the Renaud-Barrault Company. In 1966, he started a line of Rive Gauche ready-to-wear clothing, and he began designing menswear in 1974. Over the decades, the Yves Saint Laurent name has been licensed to a range of products, including eyeglasses, bath and bed linens, furs, and perfume. He also was the first major designer to employ models of varied ethnic backgrounds.
In 1977, he presented colorful collections with exotic themes: the Espagnoles, with dresses straight out of a painting by Diego Velázquez, and the Chinoises, celebrating the annals of imperial China. He also launched a new perfume, Opium, the advertising for which, orchestrated by the Mafia agency, created a scandal with the slogan "For those who are addicted to Yves Saint Laurent." In 1981, Saint Laurent launched a men's perfume, Kouros. The year 1982 marked the twentieth anniversary of the founding of his couture house; at the celebration for this occasion, he received the International Fashion Award of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
In 1983, he showed the Noire et Rose collection, introduced the perfume Paris, designed costumes for the play Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras, and enjoyed the opening of the exhibition "Yves Saint Laurent, 25 Years of Design" at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the largest retrospective ever devoted to a living couturier. That same year he made his appearance in the Larousse dictionary. President François Mitterrand awarded Saint Laurent the medal of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1985,and was also later recognized with the award for Best Couturier for the body of his work.
In October 1998, Saint Laurent introduced his final ready-to-wear collection, and the following year he sold his business to Gucci. Yves Saint Laurent announced his retirement in 2002.
