Yves Saint
Laurent
Early Years 1957-1966: Self, Image and Impact
Ellen Anders and Veronica Manlow
Fashion, Style, Appearance, Consumption & Design
PCA/ACA 2014, Chicago
Dualism:
Postmodern/Hypermodern
Sensibility
Yves Saint Laurent works within oppositional
frameworks with concepts that are irreconcilable.
Couture/Ready-to-wear
Upper class/Working class
Tradition/Modernity/Postmodernity
Freedom/Control
Fashion/Art/Commerce
Business/Anarchy
Solution: create a coherence through bricolage and
appropriation. Creates a new aristocracy of style.
Inhabits the couture world, holds a seat of power,
yet experiences himself as marginalized
Couture
and
Dior’s
Legacy
1947 “New Look” references France’s glorious past, captures the popular imagination, and
becomes the look for women all around the world.
the majority acquire this look at a reasonable price.
Echoing Voltaire, Le Monde (1957) describes Dior as carrying the mantle of French culture, a man
identified with good taste, the art of living and the refined culture of which Paris is the center.
Dior did not see that he had a revolutionary in his own house, who while he would
always defend luxury and the art of the couturier, would undermine its very foundation
and core principles.
New Look described as “antithesis of masculine wartime fashions” and a “total glorification of the female form.”
Saint Laurent at the
Forefront of a Cultural Shift
in Couture
An inversion occurs: couture once
leading the way in the world of fashion,
copied and imitated in what Simmel
refers to as a “trickling down” process,
becomes a means of supporting readyto-wear,
valued primarily for its symbolic
value
In this supporting role couture is
dethroned.
Couture’s image becomes more
important than its material
existence, something the haute
couture establishment would reject as a
possibility.
Late 50s: Importance of Couture Diminishes
 Stores selling more ready-to-wear, and
copies and adaptations of couture.
 Social and cultural changes make
couture less appealing even to richest
segments of society.
 Decline of haute couture business
allows crèatures in France to focus on
growing middle- and upper-class
customers.
 Yves Saint Laurent sees the writing on
the wall and opens Rive Gauche readyto-wear boutique in 1966.
 Franchises boutiques
Yves Saint Laurent:
A Paradox
 Charged to uphold the couture tradition.
 Seizes on chance to reshape it. Takes a great risk.
 Contradiction: having to appear correct while being
revolutionary.
 He struggles with depression and addiction.
 In his life and work he explores the themes of control and
freedom. Says of the modern woman that she must
be well dressed but feel she is in her own skin (Le
Monde 1963).
 Always a part of the “aristocratic” fashion and cultural
establishment while embracing new ideas that were held
by the counterculture and found on the streets—albeit the
Paris Streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and its art, jazz,
literary and intellectual counterculture. Refined, academic
rebellion vs. gangsters and the working class.
Coronation
of Yves
Saint
Laurent
At age 18 he becomes
Dior’s assistant, and a few
years later after Dior’s
sudden death, he becomes
his successor.
New York Times (1957)
makes a statement which
would prove ironic. “Yves
Saint Laurent, the 21 yearold successor to Christian
Dior stepped out of
obscurity to face the press
today. He indicated he
planned no style
revolutions.”
6
Collections
for Dior
Saint Laurent was drafted
into the army in September
1960
Replaced by Marc Bohan after
his hospitalization in October
Discharged in November and
soon after fired by the house
of Dior
Replaced by Bohan who
restored the house to a more
conservative path.
widely praised Trapeze (L’elephant
blanc) 1958
Triumph of Saint
Laurent
 Many pieces in Trapeze collection were in keeping with Dior’s
aesthetic. Trapeze differed in its lack of padding and lining.
 American Vogue on March 1, 1958 declares:
“It was ah oui, need we say, for St. Laurent at the exciting first
collection by this grave young man, slender, myopic, charming
and the baby (twenty-two) of the knowing team that carries on
the house of Dior.”
 Bergé: “On January 30, 1958, the painfully shy, then 21
year-old now hero of French fashion stood on the balcony of
Dior’s elegant establishment at 30 Avenue Montaigne as the
crowds shouted ‘Saint Lau-rent! Saint Lau-rent!’”
 “Parisians demonstrate in the streets, chanting his name and
proclaiming that Yves Saint Laurent has saved France.”
Hobble Skirt August 1959
 Youth oriented. Not
accepted by older clients.
 January 1960 warned to
tone down his creations.
More cautious.
 Spring/Summer 1960
collection is described in
the Metropolitan Museum
of Art Exhibition Catalogue
(1983) as one of the most
beautiful and youthful that
the house has produced.
 After war a youthful
emphasis gives hope to a
new generation
August 1960 collection at Dior
inspired by the Beat
Generation.
Challenges the couture
establishment. Creates
shock, confusion and
criticism in the press.
It led to his removal, as a
“dangerous undermining
radicalism” was evident. It
was also considered an
“alarmingly unbalanced
look” as it could only be
worn by younger women
and could not be adapted
easily for anyone else.
Connections to youth revolution
turtle necks, leather jackets
Beat Collection
Private and Business Partnership with
Bergé
At the hospital during
Saint Laurent’s military
service a decision was
taken to open a couture
house.
November 1960
discharged.
The two men after
returning from the
Canary Islands moved
into an apartment
1962 first collection
Continuity and Change in Couture
and Ready-to-Wear
 Saint Laurent embodies a revolutionary
French spirit embracing cultural
heritage and traditions of France and
conflicts present in society which call
into question the status quo.
In his revolutionary changes he
maintains connections with the past.
He is at once disciplined and
rebellious.
Freeing or Conquering
Women?
 Appropriating symbols of masculinity for women. Brochure of the
Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent: “The ‘Saint Laurent
Revolution’ conquered all women.”
 Dichtomy: Saint Laurent does not see himself as participant in a
larger movement. “Yves Saint Laurent enlarged the couturier's
sphere of influence by allowing the client to express herself
freely.”
 Saint Laurent compared to God, working this time with cloth and
concepts instead of with bone, it goes as far as to say in bold
type: “Yves Saint Laurent created a new gender, a blend of
female and male.”
 Teboul, a biographer, says “his” women are “neither sluts nor
slaves” but at times both at once. Freedom comes through
shifting.
Saint Laurent as Ruler/Savior of
Fashion System
 Saint Laurent is the
author supplying the
codes by which women
may be read but in the
everyday world of
experience women take
authorship and assign
their own purposes and
meanings to the clothing
and to their own selfpresentation.
Freedom and Constraint
Control is Hidden
 1958 L’Elephant blanc evening
dress for Dior. “A boned corset
anchors the dress but allows the
delusion of a free-swinging
cone.”
 Catherine Deneuve says
masculine look in the collections
gives woman “strength to stand
up to encounters that can become
confrontational” during the day,
and at night “when we go back to
the people we are close to, they
help us look seductive.”
 Saint Laurent uses a rhetoric of
empowerment.
Contrast: Natural Body
Form (Gina Lollobrigida)
Expanding the Boundaries of Ethnicity
 Diversity ran strong in both
his creations and his business
practices.
 He was the first to hire Black
and Asian models.
 Incorporated many ethnic
elements. 1976-1977 Russian
Collection, in 1977-1978
Chinese inspired fashion,1992
Royal Indian designs.
 Saint Laurent brings ethnic
styles and fabric/materials
into couture domain.
 changes the ethnic dynamic
and changes the expectations
one has of couture.
1967 African Collection
Hybrid Ethnicity: Appropriation or
Colonization?
 Uniting diverse ethnic elements
under a couture sensibility.
 Highlights unrecognized beauty.
 de Certeau’s concept of
“appropriation.” In the sense he
uses the term he looks at less
powerful people taking aspects of
colonizer’s religion, culture and
changing the orientation to reflect
native practices. Reversal.
 Fashion a means to bring the
attraction and allure of rich and
varied forms of expression within
French culture.
 Colonial couture, exoticism or an
enrichment and expansion of
codes?
Inversion: counter-revolutionary
to 60s. Russian Peasant most
expensive show ever seen in
Paris
Views on Social Class
 Challenges class boundaries from
within the established fashion
system, with exquisite materials and
design.
 Gives a presence to garments that
were not recognized. Jumpsuit, pea
coat.
 Proletarian garments are brought
into the domain of couture.
Transforming traditional items such
as the fisherman’s reefer coat.
 Teboul “the man who stole so
much from the street, only to
return everything as timeless
shapes.”
 Saint Laurent says he adores
everything about the age he lives in.
Adores the time. Would have like to
be a beatnik. Condemns wealthy.
Reefer Jacket 1962
Subversion of Class Boundaries for
Amusement of the Bourgeoisie?
 Polan (2014) says: “He took the sailor’s pea coat, the
Norman agricultural worker’s cotton smock, the
sportsman’s blazer and his shorts, the military man’s
trench coat and the grouse-moor stalker’s plus-fours or
knickerbockers, and gave them to women, urging his
models to thrust their hands into their pockets and
swagger a bit. Catherine Deneuve summed it up when
Saint Laurent designed the clothes for her 1967 film,
Belle de Jour: ‘I am dressed by Saint Laurent. I like my
clothes to be modern, enticing, with a little bit of a
come-on.’”
Sexuality, Power and Success
Fashion is connected intimately with the body and to identity.
Becomes a means of expression and a triumph over
adversity and hatred felt throughout his life.
Recurring conflict: bullied/tormented as a child and as an adult in
army, and abused during his breakdown hospital, criticsm as a
couturier.
Difficult to move forward, is attacked, retreats and
reemerges.
Going over to the women’s side…. (Teboul)
Giving women a power he did not have himself.
Feels ill at the thought of going to school. “For me school was an
atrocious experience.”
Beaten. Vows he will one day be famous.
“Kids have no mercy. But while they persecuted me I used
to say to myself, ‘One day you’re going to be famous.’ That
was my way of getting my revenge.”
Fashion was an expression of agency. Power. Something for which
he could received praise.
Yves Saint Laurent and Mother
1960
Bringing Art and Fashion Together
Belief that fashion was within the
world of art, couture an art form,
and dress was a canvas.
Mondrian, Monet, Picasso, Matisse
inspire him. His creations bridge
the divide between artist and
craftsperson, the material and
commercial world of clothing and
the high culture of art.
August 1965 collection, the
Mondrian dress.
Friendship with Andy Warhol.
Juxtapositions traditional canvas
with images of mundane objects.
Anarchist Millionaires?
Partnership With Bergé
 Creative genius and business/financial leadership. Blurring between
professional and personal life.
 Distances himself from the business of fashion while creating new
approaches to branding and marketing.
 Innovations occur within the established system as he changes the business
culture. Introduces immaterial values and new business models.
 Challenges the definition of luxury as something rare and distant from
everyday life and conventions by making it tangible and practical. In
doing so changes the dynamic of luxury.
 Severs it from the aristocratic realm. Can be trendy and visible, within reach,
known and practical.
 Changes material and commercial aspect of clothing and elevates it bringing
it to the world of art, infusing it with culture and ethnicity and with desire and
social meaning and purpose. Indeed one might say progress.
 Undertones of Enlightment ideals (with all the prejudices this entails)
Though Fashion Saint Laurent is
Triumphant
 Fashion in Saint Laurent’s case by poignant personal experience.
 He is not only the couturier in a scientist’s white coat but someone who has
thrown himself fully in his work, his only escape from trauma.
 Saint Laurent is personified in the clothing, they become a reflection of
his self and his charisma. There is a great deal of egoism.
 “Couturasses” cultivate a false brand identity to extend to the consumer
who appropriates a source of power to affirm a self.
 Saint Laurent has not simply formulated a marketing strategy.
 Links fashion to a variety of fields: in abstracting ideas from a variety
of sources and redefining them. Connects systems of values, ideals
and practices not necessarily linked creating new social meanings and
transmitting new ideologies. Changes visual codes that signify a
lifestyle, social status, class.
 New collective and social representations are created through new
forms of clothing.
Continuity. 1956 pre-Saint Laurent advertisement for
Dior Couture at Saks 5th Ave. 1980’s YSL Vogue
pants suit pattern
Conclusion and Legacy
 Dualisms such as couture vs. ready-to-wear: an impossible
combination but makes the circle complete.
 Profit/business vs. artistic inclinations: elite artist attitude but he deals
with everyday concerns of business.
 He provides Bergé with opportunities for business success and expansion.
 Personal life influences his design.
 Drive and emotion state fuels his passion to succeed.
 Mother (also Bergé) is an anchor, provides support, dependent.
 Difficulty in establishing relationships with others.
 His legacy: Women free to wear more diverse fashion, express identity
and communicate with others in a way which before was not possible.
 Provides a new identity for the French nation.
 Aligns it with contemporary art, popular culture, globalization, new ideas
 An imperfect person giving something to the world. Catalyst for
change. Innovations not confined to the elite sphere he inhabited.