Yves Saint Laurent: How a male changed the way women dress

Yves Saint Laurent is dead at 71, but his work will live forever.

From an assistant to the company “Dior” to the founding of its contents, Saint Laurent has always challenged fashion standards and has tried to make the fashion world a more representative and divers.

The Birth of a promising designer

Yves Saint Laurent was born in 1936 in Oran, Algeria, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. He was a shy young man interested in books and behind his mother's fashion magazines.

From a young age, he was very talented in drawing and started working on his teenage designs.

In 1954, he went to Paris to follow his passions and study at “Ecole de Chadm Syndicale de La Houte Couture”, where in the same year he won the first prize from the International Women Secretariat in the category of dresses, writes Brighton Side.

The lawyers of the race had already been known by Christian Dior and Hubert de Givendehy.

Work for Christian Dior

In June 1955, Saint Laurent had decided to show some of his sketches Michael de Brunhoff, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Vogeu Paris” in that period.

Amazed by the sketches, Brunhoff had decided to show them to popular designer Christian Dior.

Christian Dior was also amazed at the work of Saint Laurent, so he had immediately worked as an assistant that same month.

When Dior had suddenly died in 1957, Saint Laurent had become the creative interior director for only 21 years.

Saint Laurent had made light clothes for women

The debut collection as the creative director for the company “Dior” was launched in 1957. The collection had brought light clothes with little material.

He had tried to create clothes with more liquid silhouettes under which the body had disappeared, replacing the stuck bell of Dior.

Over the years at the Dior Company, he had tried to bring youthful air into the fashion world. He was inspired by the clothes people wore on the street and tried to simplify.

He had challenged the fashion world by ignoring the “appointed orders”. Although very talented, Saint Laurent's vision had not matched the conservative aesthetic assigned by Dior, so he had been fired.

Laundering Its Inside

Leaving “Dior” had given Saint Laurent the freedom to start his inside, along with Pierre Berge.

Yves Saint Laurent Houte Couture was launched in 1961. Berge had to sell his apartment in Paris to get money for opening the fashion house.

Their fashion home had tried to introduce something new and revolutionary in women's clothing. They wanted women to feel powerful in their clothes.

Saint Laurent introduced the two-gender fashion

Yves Saint Laurent is the first designer to wear women in men's clothes in men's world.

He created women's clothing in 1962, 1966, and 1968, which were inspired by men's wardrobe.

His most famous dress for two genders was “Le Smoke” in 1966.

Artism in its designs

Saint Laurent has also been one of the first designers to have helped unite the art world with fashion.

His collections have included works inspired by Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse, Andy Warhol, Mondrian, etc.

He gave women more freedom.

In the last years of 1960, Saint Laurent had joined the second wave of feminism. As a result, all the models walked on his shows wearing transparent T-shirts, no bras, etc.

His business partner, Berge, once said: “Gabrielle Chanel has given women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent has given them the power”.

It's brought diversity to fashion

Saint Laurent was one of the first designers to have women in fashion shows.

Naomi Campbell had become the first color model on the cover of the magazine “Vogue Paris” thanks to him.

According to her, Laurent had done much for colored people.

Dizaner Christian Lacroix explains that the reason behind Yves Saint Laurent's success has been his mind skills, and we agree.

As Lacroix says, “Chanel, Schaparelli, Balenciaga and Dior have done extraordinary things. But everyone worked in a certain style... Yves Saint Laurent is like combining all of them”.