23.7.14

Saint Laurent: A Short History

After finding a beautiful Yves Saint Laurent (now known as Saint Laurent) blouse in a charity shop, I decided to delve further into the history of the designer and the brand. I volunteered in Morocco last April with Alice (here's her fashion blog) and we took a visit to the The Majorelle Garden in Marrakesh. The Majorelle Garden is a botanical garden and artist's landscape garden, designed by the expatriate French artist Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s and 30s. Yves Saint Laurent owned the garden with his partner Pierre Bergé from 1980 and he often visited to find inspiration and refuge. I personally found the vibrant gardens inspiring and they made me more curious about the brand than ever. Here’s a few photos from our trip…




To further power curiosity about the French designer, the film Saint Laurent made its debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Saint Laurent is co-written and directed by Bertrand Bonello, starring Gaspard Ulliel as Yves Saint Laurent and Jérémie Renier as Pierre Bergé. The film focusses on Saint Laurent's life from the late 1960s to 1976 during the peak of his career. The film competed for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at The Cannes Film Festival and is scheduled for release on 24 September 2014. Here’s the trailer…



At the age of 18, Saint Laurent moved to Paris and enrolled at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and soon after, in 1957, aged 21, Saint Laurent was appointed as the head designer of the House of Christian Dior. "Dior fascinated me,” Saint Laurent stated. "He taught me the basis of my art.” Saint Laurent went on to found YSL in 1961 with his partner Pierre Bergé. YSL has been long considered one of the world's most prominent fashion houses- renowned for iconic pieces, such as the 1966 Le Smoking tuxedo suit for women. This piece was a unique design that gained mass recognition in fashion and popular culture- igniting and popularising minimal androgyny for women and leading the way for eighties power dressing and the trouser suit. Saint Laurent was also a leading figure in mainstreaming the idea of wearing silhouettes from the 1920s, 30s and 40s. During his career peak in the 1960s and 1970s, Saint Laurent was considered one of Paris's elite and enjoyed a hedonistic lifestyle filled with partying and recklessness. To balance out his time in Paris, when he was not actively working on a collection he spent time at his villa in Marrakech, Morocco.

In 1983, Saint Laurent became the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a solo exhibition but soon afterwards became reclusive and lived with poor health until his death from brain cancer in 2008. In more recent times YSL’s ready-to-wear line was rebranded Saint Laurent by newly appointed creative director Hedi Slimane. A look through the Saint Laurent 2014 a/w collection shows the brand is ever strong with awe-inspiring pieces- I personally love the 60s inspired embellished mini dresses and cape combos polished off with a pair of black opaques (my go to on a winters day). Check out my favourites... 






Photos by Isidore Montag 




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