The fashion world has lost one of its greats. Yves Saint Laurent, who died Sunday in Paris, was among the most influential designers of the late 20th century.
While his background in couture and legendary start at Christian Dior anchored him in the traditional world of French fashion, his enduring legacy will be that he helped invent and popularize prêt-a-porter, or ready-to-wear — well-designed clothing that was accessible to women worldwide.
“I adore ready to wear. It’s alive, it’s quick, it’s daring,” the designer told the trade paper Women’s Wear Daily in 1971.
Saint Laurent died at his Paris home after a long illness, Pierre Berge, his longtime friend and business partner, told The Associated Press.
From his start at age 22 with a much-lauded “trapeze” collection at Dior, Saint Laurent spent the next four decades bringing an artist’s eye and street sense to fashion.
“Girls today look the same all over the world, but they start in the streets of Paris,” said Vogue editor Diana Vreeland in introducing a YSL retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1983. “Yves Saint Laurent has a fifty-fifty deal with the street. Half of the time he is inspired by the street, and half of the time the street gets its style from Yves Saint Laurent.”
Among his most enduring — and copied designs — was ‘le smoking,’ a feminized version of a man’s tuxedo jacket. He loved putting women in pantsuits and made luxurious versions of such items as peacoats and turtlenecks. Safari style and trench coats, motorcycle jackets and knee-high boots were some of the other ideas he brought to stylish women.
The designer also was an artist and delighted in creating fanciful collections like the Russian designs he debuted for fall-winter 1976-77. A Chinese collection followed the next year.
He was influenced by artists, too. Piet Mondrian inspired Saint Laurent’s geometric shifts in the 1960s. The designer channeled Pablo Picasso in 1979 for a famous vivid red dress with a skirt of swirling appliques.
Like his contemporary Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Saint Laurent expanded his fashion empire with accessories and fragrances. By the 1970s, his signature “YSL” logo was recognizable by fashionable women around the world.
“The accessory is the part, to my mind, that pulls the whole look together and gives it a unique quality,” he said in 1982.
Among his loyal customers were such luminaries as French actress Catherine Deneuve, jewelry designer Paloma Picasso and American actress Lauren Bacall.
“Style consists of very little,” the designer said in 1972. “You don’t go either too far to the left or too far to the right. The work becomes more difficult; you must be careful to reject everything that does not correspond to the style . . . fashion changes but style is eternal.”
Suzanne S. Brown: 303-954-1697 or sbrown@denverpost.com
