Yves Herin Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent was a French Fashion Designer born on the 1st of August 1936, in Oran, Algeria–Died 1stJune 2008 in Paris, France–age 71 of Brain Cancer.
Yves Saint Laurent was an inspiring, revolutionary designer that showed passion and talent from a young age and confirmed his set career in fashion before he was even 18 years old.
Laurent was brought up by his parents–his mother a fashion writer for various fashion magazines, this inspired Laurent’s early interests of Literature and Music, he would regularly read his mother’s magazines and grew up as a shy and sensitive child surrounded by creatives that fuelled his near future and powered him to transform into one of the most influential designers of the century.
Laurent started in costume to be exact - Jean Cocteau’s –‘Infernal Machine’ starring Jean Marais who had a significant impact on Laurent from a young age so much that he followed his passion for theatre and ended up creating ‘Illustrate perit Theatre’, a miniature set of a series of cardboard characters wearing costumes he painted and designed. He enjoyed designing this collection and allowing his creative mind to follow that he followed on to design costumes for Jean Cocteau’s ‘Sodome et Gomorrhe and L’aigle a Deux Tetes. This work caught attention of industry creatives including Roland Petit, who called his work ‘immediate and astounding sense of what a costume should be’
His mother influenced many of Laurent’s processes, he cut out models he liked out of the magazines and designed full collections for the women with ink, gouache, and water colours. He entered a competition in which he has the option of three categories: Coats, Suits, and dresses in which he was awarded first and third place in the dresses category a first of many awards he would continue to collect. To collect his award, him and his mother travelled to Paris where they met the Editor in Chief of vogue at the time –Michel De Brunhoff. Soon after he entered a second competition named Secretariat International De La Laine in 1954 while studying fashion at a Paris Fashion School. His design which took first place was a Black Crepe Cocktail Dress made by Hubert De Givenchy Ateliers, this gave Laurent major exposure to fashion heads and a head start in his soon to be thriving fashion career.
His earlier introduction to the Vogue in Chief–Michel De Brunoff, prompted his start to succession. Brunoff saw talent and promise in Laurent’s designs and introduced him to Christian Dior who employed him as his assistant on the spot, Laurent was just 17 years old.
Laurent’s style was very similar to Dior’s so many awaited nervously to see what Laurent designed as his first collection as the successor of such a fashion revolutionary and icon. Laurent’s first collection under the Dior name featured a Fluid silhouette with less fabric and a lighter weight in 1958, maybe were shocked as this style is completely opposite to the ‘New Look’ Christian Dior was so famous for, this was just the start of the effect Laurent would have on the fashion industry, always making customers wait in suspense and not knowing what collection would be next. While working under Dior, Laurent was given opportunities to pursue his passion for theatre and costume. He was asked to design costumes by Baron Alexis De Rede for the Bal De Tetes 1956, these designs were extravagant and encouraged Laurent to go wild with these thoughts. Richard Avedon also captured one of Laurent’s first dress designs in the ‘Dovima with Elephants’ photograph.
Inspiration developed from Paris streetwear and Laurent took a risky move with introducing darker and more edgy styles in his 1960s collection, presenting women in black jackets made Dior’s customers not convinced as the sudden change in style, colour and texture was a shock to the couture industry, Laurent’s approach and bravery to keep people of their toes with his designs is one of things that made him so influential and key a player in the development of the fashion industry. This new style embraced cultural difference as well as a movement through fashion, the new silhouettes embraced masculine forms and androgynist themes moving after from Christian Dior’s hyperfeminine ‘New Look’ the masculine introduction created freedom for women to explore the world outside of the rigid terms of femininity and gender and too slowly shift to less conformed and structured shapes, colours and textures. I also think this season reflects his work the most as it shows the true nature of experimentation within Laurent’s vision Soon after he won the Neiman Marcus Award in 1958 and then he collapsed appointing Marc Bohen as the new head designer for DIOR.
After Laurent’s great few years as head designer at DIOR he moved to his own label - YSL. This label was a creation of his own where he could design whatever he wanted under his own name. YSL was named the Haute Couture house of dreams and was a pioneer for change in the industry and an inspiration for the new. Following the 'little girl look' and A line silhouettes he introduced a more sophisticated style, embracing longer skirts then in 1959 drastically shortening these skirts to an almost mini skirt. 1960 he designed the chic look of turtlenecks which were an instant hit and women all over France were rushing to get a hold of them. One of my most favourite ideas of his, the leather jackets lined with fur. These wild creations named him as one of the most influential designers in Paris.
Laurent had great success with his designs, but one think not mentioned is the sustainability of his work – not something that anyone considered at the time not just YSL. His garments were laced with sheets and sheets of Silk, Wool and Cotton all at the time factory made. Paris fashion was one of the highest buyers for the Silk trade and contributed detrimentally to the uprise in factories unknowing of the inside conditions. Women in the 18-1900s were still seen as household workers and there for limited to jobs, this may have improved in 1918 when the suffragette movement pushed for the right for women to vote but there was still much improvement to be made.
Conditions for women and children in these factories were dire, the contrast between luxury fashion and the suffering families who made and manufactured these garments is Hideous. The fashionable lady who would buy these luxury items from brands such a YSL and DIOR became a symbol of bourgeois hypocrisy both to feminists and to worker representatives. Women were dying, children dying before there 5th birthday, slaving away for one garment to show a lady’s wealth, these women of higher grade were aware of these effects, so wear the designers such as Laurent. Laurent mainly used the factories when producing Ready to Wear and Accessories not so much is haute couture collections as haute couture was not mass produced. Silk was such a popular material due to its thin, delicate, and hard to manage properties – to create a silk garment it would take longer, more seamstresses, more attention, and more work so it was seen as more luxurious. They were also easier to keep clean and fine enough to be pleated and draped. A stop to importing silk to France only increased the demand and popularity and were seen as a threat to the indigenous English wool and silk trades. Following In DIORs succession, a man known for his clothing to empower women, to appeal to women and for women to wear a DIOR garment and feel confident and feminine you would think both brands would take a closer look at the effect their garment production is having on 18,1900 century working women. There garment production goes against all YSL/late DIOR ideals and morals, so why call them a feminine revolutionary when there doing the opposite?
Further on in YSLs career, metallics, transparent fabric and rock inspired silhouettes and themes took over YSL in his late 1960s collections, moving to heavily 70s inspired themes and reoccurring inspiration from his previous love of costume especially Russian costume and the haute peasant look. The YSL brand soon expanded to Ready to Wear, Accessories, Household Linens, Fragrance, and menswear lines. After a successful few years on the new lines he sold the Ready to Wear line to Gucci for 7 billion in 1999, and shut down YSL couture to retire in 2002.
Modern day YSL embraces clean, sleek silhouettes that show maturity and if worn to work – professionalism. The brand values simplicity and femininity with masculine highlights.
I think we can confidently say that Laurent was a true visionary for fashion and a pioneer for fashion change and development, he encouraged experimentation and creation - moulding the fashion industry into what it is today. We need designers like Laurent who can push boundaries so fashion can keep evolving into the near future and so on.
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