Yves Saint Lauren was born in 1936 and at the age of 17 left his native Algeria for Paris.
In the French capital he showed his drawings to the director of Vogue at the time, Michel de Brunhoff, and had them published right away by the impressed figurehead.
He was then to go to fashion school and was introduced to Christian Dior by de Brunhoff, and ended up working for him until Diors death in 1957.
Saint Lauren took over as art director at Dior and later launched his first collection for the firm, the Ligne Trapaze.
In 1960 he was to create the Beat Look collection which refined the style of the street with high culture techniques. But his bold innovation was to get him into trouble with Dior, who lifted bars on him being sent into national service.
He returned from service in 1962 and set up his own fashion house alongside Pierre Bergac, and went on to continue to ruffle feathers.
In 1966 he produced a legendary smoking suit design and then went on to produce the reefer jacket in 1962, the sheer blouse in 1966 and then the jumpsuit in 1968.
Yves Saint Laurent was later to show his final ready-to-wear collection for the Rive Gauche label he had founded more than three decades before.
American designer Alber Elbaz was earmarked to be his successor but this was to come to an end after the Italian fashion house Gucci bought the business at the end of 1999 and handed over the controls to the designer Tom Ford.
Yves Saint Laurent continued to have control of the haute couture business and the impact of the empire he built and sold on reaches to menswear, jewelry, perfumes, furs and accessories which are available across the globe.
Saint Lauren was one of the most influential designers of all time during his career and won legions of awards including the promotion to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1995, becoming a Commandeur six years later.
His national and global status was confirmed at the final of the 1998 World Cup in Paris when he masterminded the presentation of 300 models featuring retrospective YSL designs to celebrate 40 years in fashion in front of an audience of 80,000 fans and 170 television channels.
He retired in January 2002, by which time he was well into 60s, and paid tribute to the likes of Dior, Balenciaga and Chanel for influencing his career.
He also revealed his distaste for the way the fashion industry had become dominated by money rather than art. He said: "I have nothing in common with this new world of fashion, which has been reduced to mere window-dressing.
"Elegance and beauty have been banished."
This was just over two weeks before he presented his final haute couture collection - which showed classic YSL creations through the span of his 40-year career and included more than 250 outfits lasting over an hour-and-a-half long. Parts of the show featured 40 new designs and 100 models participated. |
