Pea coats. Trench coats. Trapeze dresses. Safari chic. Pants. They are all part of Yves Saint Laurent legacy. He brought feminism, pop art and multiculturalism to fashion. He was the last of the great designers and his death on Sunday marks the official end of an era. No other designer had a long enough career to have so many renaissances. Lucky for us, his influence lives on in almost every fashion line today.
The sack dress evolved into the shift dress and St. Laurent saw the planarity of the silhouette as a perfect modern canvas for Mondrian’s geometric painting. The genius of his craftsmanship is that the dresses aren’t printed. Each color is a separate piece and the dresses are shaped through the black grid of seams.
If you have ever worn black pants to an evening event, you can thank YSL. Pants never really took off (outside weekend wear and factory work during WWII) until he debuted Le Smoking in 1966. The female tuxedo was an instant sensation, and pant suits became all the rage.
Yves Saint Laurent with Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise, all in his designs, outside his new London boutique in 1969. If you open any fashion magazine you’ll see A-line skirts, safari jackets, crazy prints, platform shoes and flowing dresses. It’s all there and it’s all him.