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 During a time of rigid dress codes, gay designer Yves Saint Laurent, who died on June 2, revolutionised women’s fashion. By Iain Clacher.
Hailed as one of the greatest designers of the 20th century, Yves Saint Laurent is credited with defining modern women’s style and bringing street fashion to haute couture.
Born in Oran, Algeria, in August 1936, Saint Laurent was bullied at school. He found solace in drawing and sometimes designed dresses for his mother and sisters.
As a 17-year-old Parisian student, Saint Laurent won first prize in a dress design competition, which brought him to the attention of Christian Dior, who was sufficiently impressed to make the young designer his assistant.
Before his death in 1957, Dior had begun referring to Saint Laurent as his “dauphin”, and the younger man took over the House of Dior.
His 1960 Dior collection is still remembered for its appropriation of hip Parisian street styles, to which he brought the touch of a master couturier.
With his lover Pierre Bergé as his business manager, Saint Laurent began his own label, YSL, in 1962, just as women began entering the work force en masse.
“YSL followed the liberation of women,” Bergé told reporters last week. “I’m not saying he invented it, but he played a part in it.”
LA Times fashion critic Beth Moore wrote that Laurent “gave (women) the clothes to compete on a level playing field”.
“If it were not for Saint Laurent, who sent pants down the runway in 1962 and again in 1966 ... Giorgio Armani might not have an empire and Hillary Rodham Clinton might not have a uniform,” Moore wrote.
 Saint Laurent’s tuxedo pantsuit has been credited with revolutionising women’s fashion because it combined “traditional masculine tailoring with a feminine silhouette”. Until that time, haute couture had concerned itself with “buttressing and correcting” the female silhouette.
Though Saint Laurent’s homosexuality was widely known, he did not come out publicly until 1991, 15 years after his 18-year romantic relationship with Bergé ended in 1976.
Nonetheless, Bergé stayed on as Saint Laurent’s business manager until the end, and continued living in their jointly-owned home until 1986.
When Saint Laurent announced his retirement in 2002 he spoke of years of depression and drug abuse.
Though parts of the YSL empire continued without the master’s designs, Bergé had already delivered the eulogy in 2002.
“Haute couture,” Bergé said, “would die after the retirement of Yves Saint Laurent.”
Out Australian designer Daniel Alexander told SX that Saint Laurent had left a “huge hole in the industry”.
“There have been lots of attempts, but no new designer has matched Saint Laurent’s talent for minimalism,” Alexander said.
“He was a God of minimalism and elegance.”
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