YSL founder Yves Saint Laurent, fashion’s youngest prince and LGBTQ activist – 5 things you didn’t know
Haute couture icon left Dior to found YSL, inspiring celebrity ‘it girls’ in often controversial career
From his stylish muses – the “it girls” of their time – to the artists he would befriend; from the places he liked to frequent, to how women on the high street were dressed, Yves Saint Laurent was constantly looking for inspiration in the world around him.
He used his designs to respond to, reflect on, and even rebel against fashion conventions and the signs of the times. Openly homosexual, he was an activist on gay rights and founded Sidaction, a fundraising institution dedicated to AIDS research. On June 1, 2008, the designer passed away from brain cancer at his residence in Paris.
Although the label Saint Laurent has subsequently been taken in different directions under the creative helm of Hedi Slimane and now Anthony Vaccarello, it still carries its founder’s name. Here we revisit the pivotal moments that shaped the brand and Saint Laurent’s colourful life and career.
Saint Laurent’s early influences included theatre
At 13, Saint Laurent discovered the magic of theatre in Oran, Algeria, where he was born. “It had a major impact on me. At the time, the touring theatre productions were outstanding,” he is quoted as saying in a Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris biography.
Fascinated, he furnished a tiny cardboard theatre. “I was secretly cutting up my mother’s dresses to clothe my theatre characters, whose costumes I made out of fabric.” He went on to create a mini couture house, cutting out models from his mother’s copies of Vogue, Jardin des Modes, and Paris Match.
At 21, he became the world’s youngest couturier – only to be fired three years later
Following the passing of Christian Dior in 1957, Saint Laurent took over the couture house and was christened “the little prince of fashion”. His reign was short-lived.