Yves Saint Laurent.

So the YSL house is to be renamed Saint Laurent Paris, hey? Touché. I like it.

Yves Saint Laurent. One of those enigmatic people who you wish had made a memoir depicting every thought he ever had. There's patently too much to say with respect to his influence, but I have rummaged around my hard-drive and gathered a measly collection of photos to highlight even slightly how talented he was. The photographs are a bit all over the place size-wise and aren't in chronological order nor of the best quality, but, as always, they do the talking.


First bloomed as a fashion flower when he won a design competition with an asymmetrical evening dress - he was so good he was hired instantly by Dior. (Note that this is 1954 and this guy's doing an asymmetrical evening dress.)


At a 1957 press conference, before the announcement of his role as head designer at Dior


1957 - look at those illustrations. So elegant, no?


Catherine Deneuve, in red fur YSL, by Helmut Newton. What a beautiful sentence, let alone image.


Portrait by Andy Warhol, 1972. You can see a lot of Andy in this, can't you? What a rig too!




1967 - YSL was the first to really use influence from Africa, and use black models even.


Absolutely love this photo - from French Elle, March 1971


Yves Saint Laurent himself for YSL Homme


Fall Winter 1973 and Spring Summer 1974. So modern looking, and 40 years ago as well.




YSL's art - 1985


































1968. NINETEEN SIXTY EIGHT.


I think about this image all the time - white, masculine, feminine, Freja, bow, monochrome, power, innocence, wahhhh


Love this. With Nan Kempner in 1978 at the launch party for his Opium perfume.


Not sure of the date - will check and update!


1983 AW collection - amazing


Haute Couture, 1978. Cannot cope with how good.


More of his art, from 1970


Shot by Irving Penn


1984


1999


His Winter collection of 1968. How INCREDIBLE is that dress?


1995 - again, incredible


With muses Betty Calroux and the incredible Loulou de la Falaise outside his new River Gauche boutique in London, 1969


2002 brings his final couture show and some fierce versions of Le Smoking. I wonder who owns one of those..




Le Smoking, 1976


With Catherine Deneuve. Great photo, hey.


Such a good campaign, shot by Juergen Teller, 2006


1970


A wedding dress from his Fall Winter 1970 collection. Wuhoooah.


With Carla Bruni in a dress he designed, inspired by Matisse's doves, 1998.


Iris Egbers in YSL by Johan Sandberg, 2011. Amazing.


Shot by Jeanloup Sieff in 1972


My favourite of his art, 1977




Catherine Deneuve's 'Belle de Jour' coats. That PVC one above, oh my life.


1986 in his studio



His final show, with his muses and models de jour.


And finally, by Irving Penn, 1983.


The last in chic.

Saint Laurent Paris.