Yves Saint Laurent’s Contribution to Fashion
Mon. 15 April ‘24
Yves Saint Laurent rose like a phoenix in legendary fashion design because he creatively transformed what womenswear could be. Yves’ contributions to Parisian fashion are everlasting as he cultivated a new closet for the modern woman. Christian Dior elected him to be his successor at the fashion house when Yves was just 19 years old (Steele, 2017).
Later, Yves launched his first-ever fashion show with his debut for Dior in January 1958. Yves made loose, flowy, sensual clothes to showcase the woman’s figure. Yves said “Nothing is more beautiful than a naked body,” and “The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion.”
In 1961, Yves designed his last Dior collection before he underwent psychiatric treatment for several months. Marcel Boussac, the financier of the Christian Dior fashion house, took the opportunity to remove Yves from the business because Yves desired to continue creating art that their conservative society did not understand or accept.
Yves founded his fashion house Yves Saint Laurent in December 1961, after being replaced with Marc Bohan, who retired from Dior in 1989 (Steele, 2017). He demonstrated how fashion could be his wildest imagination. He made comfortable, yet stylish clothing for women who wanted to feel beautiful. Yves created sensual, sheer blouses for women, which stirred up controversy.
The film wonderfully detailed his personal life as well. Yves struggled with mental health and substance abuse and was criticized for his homosexual intimate life. He grew up in 1940s French Algeria where he faced physical assault by classmates in his school days and in the short time, he spent in the army. Yves spent a few months in a mental hospital, where he became severely afflicted with substances (Steele, 2017). Yves continued to produce magnificent fashion designs, despite his struggle with drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes.
He shifted his artistic direction to ready-to-wear in 1966 by opening a new store (Rocamore, 2009). Ready-to-wear was a tenth of the price of haute couture, and these were garments that innumerable ordinary women could wear. He expanded his target audience from society ladies to a broader range of women. All Parisian women who wore Yves Saint Laurent clothes emphasized to the audience how these people were forward thinkers in a traditional, patriarchal society (Rocamora, 2009).
All women were rewriting themselves as unique, different, and special, just by donning Yves’ womenswear due to Yves’s specific intention of beautifying women to stand out from lackluster. Yves’ immense contribution to fashion was regarded as an exponential magnitude in the industry (Rocamora, 2009). Young women wanted to rebel from classical norms of being modestly covered by cloth.
Yves Saint Laurent was the only designer creating futuristic clothes for women. Yves strayed away from what most people were accustomed to seeing. Saint Laurent believed he could change how the world thinks by creating futuristic fashion to uplift women’s confidence. His mission was to design what women wanted to wear. He gave women the clothes to feel beautiful in.
He cared about how women looked in his clothes, how they felt, and what message his clothes energized. Yves lived with his longtime business partner and boyfriend Pierre Bergé from 1958 to 1976 (Rocamora, 2009). His close alliances with other fashion industry professionals and film actresses acquired more success for the business. Yves Saint Laurent reinvented what fashion was.
