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Saint Laurent's designs often combined elements of comfort and elegance. He is credited with having introduced the "Le Smoking" tuxedo suit for women, and was known for his use of non-European cultural references and diverse models

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Founded in 1961, Saint Laurent is one of the most prominent fashion Houses of the 20th century.

Originally a House of Haute Couture, Saint Laurent revolutionized the way fashion and society merge and interact in 1966 with the introduction of high-end made clothes produced on a larger scale than the exclusive collections.

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Guided by Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurent is evolving on solid foundations to strengthen its market presence and affirm its distinct identity in the 21st century.

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YSL blends luxury, innovation, and cultural depth, with a focus on power, mystery, and identity. Campaigns like "As Time Goes By" merge classic and modern themes, while bold marketing on TikTok and PageSkin Plus ads reinforce YSL’s leadership in luxury branding.

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Anthony Vaccarello worked at Fendi under Karl Lagerfeld, debuted his own line in Paris in 2009, and won the 2011 ANDAM prize. He collaborated with Versus Versace from 2014, becoming its creative director in 2015. In 2016, he was appointed creative director of Saint Laurent.

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1961 – Founded by Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé in Paris; iconic YSL logo by Cassandre.

1962 – First collection debuts; includes the famous little black dress.

1966 – Launch of Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, pioneering designer ready-to-wear.

1967 – First film collaboration: wardrobe for Belle de Jour.

1968 – Debuts men’s ready-to-wear line.

1971 – Controversial ‘Libération’ couture collection sets 1980s silhouette trend.

1974 – Moves to 5 Avenue Marceau, now Musée Yves Saint Laurent.

1976 – First raised catwalk show, inspired by Ballets Russes.

1977 – Launches Opium perfume; collection themed around China.

1983 – Honored with retrospective at the Met Museum, a first for a living designer.

1997 – Appoints Alber Elbaz & Hedi Slimane to lead Rive Gauche lines.

1999 – Acquired by Gucci Group; Tom Ford named creative director.

2002 – Yves Saint Laurent retires; couture line closes.

2004 – Stefano Pilati becomes creative director.

2012 – Hedi Slimane returns; rebrands label to ‘Saint Laurent’.

2015 – Creative HQ moves to 24 Rue de l’Université, Left Bank.

2016 – Anthony Vaccarello appointed creative director.

2017 – Operations move to 37 Rue de Bellechasse, Left Bank.

2022 – Men’s SS23 show held in Marrakech, honoring YSL’s muse and legacy.

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2025 FASHION SHOWS | Saint Laurent | YSL GB

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Discover the 2025 FASHION SHOWS. All the exclusive information and much more available here on Saint Laurent’s Official Website GB

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The YSL 1998 World Cup event was a massive haute couture fashion show by Yves Saint Laurent at the Stade de France before the final match to celebrate his 40-year career, featuring 300 models, 300 designs, and a production team of 900 people, according to Collater.al Magazine. The show was a global phenomenon, broadcast to billions, and represented a fusion of high fashion and sports on an unprecedented scale.

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YSL is most known for the 1965 Mondrian dress, a shift dress with a sack silhouette inspired by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian's modernist, grid-like paintings. Its simple geometric design of intersecting black lines and blocks of primary colors made it an instant icon of 20th-century fashion and art.

The Mondrian Dress

Inspiration: The geometric paintings of Piet Mondrian.

Design: A sack-shaped shift dress featuring black lines and blocks of primary colors.

Significance: It was one of the first times art was put directly on a runway and became a widely copied, iconic look.

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Yves Saint Laurent himself said it best: "Chanel freed women, and I empowered them." Founded in 1961, the legendary house that bears his name has given us a repertoire of fabled pieces (the Mondrian shift, Le Smoking, the safari jacket, the see-through dress) that offered a modern vocabulary of dressing that was confident, worldly, and sexually liberated.

Saint Laurent and his longtime lover (and business alter ego), Pierre Bergé, founded the company in 1961, a year after the young designer was abruptly dismissed from Paris's reigning couture house, Christian Dior, of which he had been the head. Within a few years of opening his own atelier, Saint Laurent was infusing his creations with the maverick spirit of the 1960s. "There is a new trend in fashion," he declared. "It is young and strives for attractiveness rather than elegance." It also strived for worldliness. A master of appropriation, Saint Laurent would venture into realms as diverse as the gay counterculture, the souks of Marrakech, and the steppes of Russia, plucking from them garments that were humble (peasant blouses, military trenchcoats) or ceremonial (African conical breastplates) and elevating them to the status of high fashion.

The Saint Laurent creed of subversion beneath bourgeois perfection was on full display in his costumes for Catherine Deneuve's role as Séverine Serizy, an affluent housewife who leads a double life as a call girl, in Luis Buñuel's 1967 Belle de Jour. Séverine's wardrobe of immaculately tailored military-inspired coats and shifts-along with her controlled facade-masks her louche inner life of fetishistic fantasy.

One of Saint Laurent's most scandalous looks was his 1966 Le Smoking tuxedo suit. Before it, pantsuits on women were still a bit transgressive, but in Saint Laurent's fertile imagination, the trouser suit telegraphed a sensuous femininity. And the timing of Le Smoking was perfect: It spoke to the desires of the nervy young woman who was just then gaining access to birth control, political power, and an executive career.

Saint Laurent opened the Rive Gauche prêt-à-porter boutique in 1966 to sell his designs directly to the public-thereby sidestepping the knockoff merchants. With its own identity and boutique, it was the first mass-produced ready-to-wear line by a French couturier to rival the success of couture.

In 1971, he used his own face and body to promote his product, posing nude in an advertisement for the new Saint Laurent men's cologne, Pour Homme. The press went into a tailspin, with some publications banning the ad. The house caused another furor in 1977 with a fragrance called Opium. Its ad featured a splay-legged Jerry Hall draped on gold lamé cushions, as if in a trance, beneath the pitch: "Opium, for those who are addicted to Yves Saint Laurent." The ensuing media fracas-and protests by antidrug activists, as well as Chinese-American groups-only cemented the company's image of decadence deluxe.

Ultimately, Saint Laurent's drug addiction and depression took their toll, and by the 1980s the designer was no longer innovating. When Gucci Group stepped in to acquire the financially ailing company in 1999, Tom Ford soon was given the job of creating ready-to-wear while Saint Laurent remained in charge of haute couture. Increasingly frail, the founder stepped down in 2002, shuttering the couture house and leaving Ford as sole creative captain.

Carrying on the complex legacy of Saint Laurent would prove to be a herculean undertaking. But while Ford took punches for being more of a headline-grabbing, hit-making businessman than an ivory-tower designer, his stewardship of the label increased sales and lured celebrity fans. When Kering, then Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, bought more than 99 percent of Gucci Group in 2004, the high-gloss Ford left and was subsequently replaced with the more subdued Stefano Pilati, who had a knack for crafting fresh silhouettes that, while puzzling to many at first, often turned out to be curve bending. In 2012, after quietly celebrating its 50th anniversary, the house announced that Pilati would be succeeded by Hedi Slimane, a master of androgyny who had first made his name in menswear. Considering Saint Laurent's legacy of masculin-féminin sophistication, his appointment was a bold, forward-looking choice, and his collections were hugely influential, but his tenure was marked by much criticism from the press, which found his clothes derivative of vintage finds. The young Belgian Anthony Vaccarello succeeded Slimane in 2016.

All Saint Laurent Collections

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Austin Simkins Shoots the Scene at Saint Laurent's Spring 2020 Menswear Show in Malibu
On a sandy boardwalk next to the Pacific Ocean, Anthony Vaccarello showed [his Morocco-by-way-of-L.A. menswear collection](https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2020-menswear/saint-laurent) to a crowd of celebrities and industry insiders. Austin Simkins was there to photograph every angle, including epic views of the cliffs, the water's edge, and the clothes.

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Saint Laurent News, Collections, Fashion Shows, Fashion Week Reviews, and More

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Skip to main content Yves Saint Laurent himself said it best: "Chanel freed women, and I empowered them." Founded in 1961, the legendary house that bears his name has given us a repertoire of fabled pieces (the Mondrian shift, Le Smoking, the safari jacket, the see-through dress) that offered a modern vocabulary of dressing that was confident, worldly, and sexually liberated.

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Opium Perfume Campaign With Jerry Hall, Photographed By Helmut Newton In 1977

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Opium Perfume Campaign With Jerry Hall, Photographed By Helmut Newton In 1977

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£ 1,415

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Saint Laurent Introduces Icarino Bag with Hailey Bieber and Rosé

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Saint Laurent Introduces Icarino Bag with Hailey Bieber and Rosé

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Kate Moss and Chloë Sevigny in Saint Laurent Fall 2025 Campaign

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Kate Moss and Chloë Sevigny in Saint Laurent Fall 2025 Campaign

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Saint Laurent Men’s Summer 2026 Balances Precision and Desir

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Saint Laurent Men’s Summer 2026 Balances Precision and Desir

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Dry light, soft structure, and quiet sensuality shape Saint Laurent’s Summer 2026 menswear show.

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https://www.yslbeauty.com.au/dua-lipa.html

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HEDI SLIMANE is changing the name of Yves Saint Laurent to Saint Laurent Paris as part of his makeover for the label. Slimane took over from Stefano Pilati as the fashion house's new creative director in March this year.