Yves Saint Laurent, Fashion Design Icon, Dies at 71
Filed Under: Fashion News
By: Mariana L.
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Contemporary couturier legend, successor to Christian Dior and bohemian Parisian,
Yves Saint Laurent passed away Sunday .
A quiet boy from Algeria, he grew up with a passion for theater and fashion.
The designer liberated haute couture for women in the 1950’s and 60’s by making it chic to wear pants, tuxedo jackets, trench coats and sailor coats and other mens staples. Prior to his ideas of ‘evolution’, proper fashionable women stuck to skirts and dresses.
In the 1970’s, his Mondrian collection and peasant looks created waves in Europe and North America. Laurent was often inspired by fashion of the streets, and was quoted to say that his ” small job as a couturier, is to make clothes that reflect our times.”
In 1983, he was the first living designer to be honoured with a retrospective at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Later shows at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and in Beijing made him a French national treasure, and he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur in 1985.
When France basked in the glory of its 1998 World Cup soccer final, it was Saint Laurent who took center field pre-kick off with an on-field retrospective at the Stade de France.
“One of the greatest names of fashion has disappeared, the first to elevate haute couture to the rank of art,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“Yves Saint Laurent infused his label with his creative genius, elegant and refined personality, discrete and distinguished, during a half century of work, in both luxury and ready-to-wear, because he was convinced that beauty was a necessary luxury for all men and all women,” Sarkozy said in a statement.
Yves Saint Laurent, Fashion Design Icon, Dies at 71
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