Fashion legend Yves St. Laurent died today in Paris. He was 71.
Forgive me for this diary but Yves St. Laurent was always about much more than fashion. He was a legend in the industry because of the way he designed and showed clothes. While the rest of the fashion world was reduced to hawking man-made fibers St. Laurent was creating sumptuous, beautiful clothes that were revolutionary in their outlook and design - in particular the stunning Russian collection that came out in the mid-1970's and which shocked the fashion world with its innovative use of sumptuous colors, embroidery and textured prints.
St. Laurent was also one of the first openly gay designers - to him being gay was nothing to be ashamed of because for him it was who he always was. He was also (as Kath25 pointed out) one of the first designers to use black models in his runway shows - opening up the world of fashion to those who had been excluded and expanding the definitions of what was beautiful to include the non-traditional and non-European, which may have been attributable to the fact that he grew up in Algeria a Pied-Noir, a minority amongst the majority, even in France. In every way St. Laurent broke the rules.
From the French Ministry of European Affairs:
In 1966, his see-through blouse caused a scandal in the United States. Two years later, a customer arriving at a New York restaurant wearing a jersey trouser tunic was refused admission. When she reappeared in the tunic (now turned into a mini-skirt), she was let in... « I want to find the woman’s equivalent of a man’s suit, » he explained in 1967, releasing fashion from a history dictated by hem lengths and colours, and pushing it forward into a new age. His biggest scandal will have been to magnify the body, to replace the word elegance by seduction, fanning the fires of desire where decency and respectability had once been the norm.
St. Laurent single-handedly made fashion what it is today. He along with Halston and Lagerfeld are responsible for the female silhouette and for re-fashioning fashion in a woman's image, and not in the image that a man wanted to see a woman.
From Lady Goodman:
He was not just a visionaire, but a man who knew nuance was seduction, subtlety impossible to resist and opulence a high aphrodisiac. Lush fabrics, intense embroidery, bold, yet lean silhouettes, rich colors -- and ethnic influences from Russia as noted, Africa, gypsy boheme.
Even more than Halston or Lagerfeld, there was a fantasy aspect to Saint Laurent's work, something that screamed: what do you dream? who shall you be? And it was always rendered with a soignee sense of sangfroide. These were clothes for the woman you wished to be, aspired to be, could be... and that slow burn sexuality and larger than life high fashion for the street, the power lay firmly on the back of the wearer.
No one can replace Yves St. Laurent. He will be missed.
I invented her past, I offered her her future, and that will go on long after I have died.