Yves Saint LaurentEarly Years 1957-1966: Self, Image and Impact

Ellen Anders and Veronica ManlowFashion, Style, Appearance, Consumption & DesignPCA/ACA 2014, Chicago

Dualism: Postmodern/Hypermodern Sensibility

Yves Saint Laurent works within oppositional frameworks with concepts that are irreconcilable.

Couture/Ready-to-wear

Upper class/Working class

Tradition/Modernity/Postmodernity

Freedom/Control

Fashion/Art/Commerce

Business/Anarchy

Solution: create a coherence through bricolage and appropriation. Creates a new aristocracy of style.

Inhabits the couture world, holds a seat of power, yet experiences himself as marginalized

Couture and Dior’s Legacy

1947 “New Look” references France’s glorious past, captures the popular imagination, and becomes the look for women all around the world.

the majority acquire this look at a reasonable price.

Echoing Voltaire, Le Monde (1957) describes Dior as carrying the mantle of French culture, a man identified with good taste, the art of living and the refined culture of which Paris is the center. Dior did not see that he had a revolutionary in his own house, who while he would always defend luxury and the art of the couturier, would undermine its very foundation and core principles.

New Look described as “antithesis of masculine wartime fashions” and a “total glorification of the female form.”

Saint Laurent at the Forefront of a Cultural Shift in Couture

An inversion occurs: couture once leading the way in the world of fashion, copied and imitated in what Simmel refers to as a “trickling down” process, becomes a means of supporting ready-to-wear,

valued primarily for its symbolic value

In this supporting role couture is dethroned.

Couture’s image becomes more important than its material existence, something the haute couture establishment would reject as a possibility.

Late 50s: Importance of Couture Diminishes

Stores selling more ready-to-wear, and copies and adaptations of couture.

Social and cultural changes make couture less appealing even to richest segments of society.

Decline of haute couture business allows crèatures in France to focus on growing middle- and upper-class customers.

Yves Saint Laurent sees the writing on the wall and opens Rive Gauche ready-to-wear boutique in 1966. Franchises boutiques

Yves Saint Laurent: A Paradox Charged to uphold the couture tradition.

Seizes on chance to reshape it. Takes a great risk.

Contradiction: having to appear correct while being revolutionary.

He struggles with depression and addiction.

In his life and work he explores the themes of control and freedom. Says of the modern woman that she must be well dressed but feel she is in her own skin (Le Monde 1963).

Always a part of the “aristocratic” fashion and cultural establishment while embracing new ideas that were held by the counterculture and found on the streets—albeit the Paris Streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and its art, jazz, literary and intellectual counterculture. Refined, academic rebellion vs. gangsters and the working class.

Coronation of Yves Saint LaurentAt age 18 he becomes Dior’s assistant, and a few years later after Dior’s sudden death, he becomes his successor.

New York Times (1957) makes a statement which would prove ironic. “Yves Saint Laurent, the 21 year-old successor to Christian Dior stepped out of obscurity to face the press today. He indicated he planned no style revolutions.”

6 Collections for Dior

Saint Laurent was drafted into the army in September 1960

Replaced by Marc Bohan after his hospitalization in October

Discharged in November and soon after fired by the house of Dior

Replaced by Bohan who restored the house to a more conservative path.

widely praised Trapeze (L’elephant blanc) 1958

Triumph of Saint Laurent

Many pieces in Trapeze collection were in keeping with Dior’s aesthetic. Trapeze differed in its lack of padding and lining.

American Vogue on March 1, 1958 declares:

“It was ah oui, need we say, for St. Laurent at the exciting first collection by this grave young man, slender, myopic, charming and the baby (twenty-two) of the knowing team that carries on the house of Dior.”

Bergé: “On January 30, 1958, the painfully shy, then 21 year-old now hero of French fashion stood on the balcony of Dior’s elegant establishment at 30 Avenue Montaigne as the crowds shouted ‘Saint Lau-rent! Saint Lau-rent!’” “Parisians demonstrate in the streets, chanting his name

and proclaiming that Yves Saint Laurent has saved France.”

Hobble Skirt August 1959

Youth oriented. Not accepted by older clients.

January 1960 warned to tone down his creations. More cautious.

Spring/Summer 1960 collection is described in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition Catalogue (1983) as one of the most beautiful and youthful that the house has produced. After war a youthful

emphasis gives hope to a new generation

Beat Collection August 1960 collection at Dior inspired by the Beat Generation.

Challenges the couture establishment. Creates shock, confusion and criticism in the press.

It led to his removal, as a “dangerous undermining radicalism” was evident. It was also considered an “alarmingly unbalanced look” as it could only be worn by younger women and could not be adapted easily for anyone else.

Connections to youth revolution

turtle necks, leather jackets

Private and Business Partnership with Bergé

At the hospital during Saint Laurent’s military service a decision was taken to open a couture house.

November 1960 discharged.

The two men after returning from the Canary Islands moved into an apartment

1962 first collection

Continuity and Change in Couture and Ready-to-Wear

Saint Laurent embodies a revolutionary French spirit embracing cultural heritage and traditions of France and conflicts present in society which call into question the status quo. In his revolutionary changes he

maintains connections with the past. He is at once disciplined and

rebellious.

Freeing or Conquering Women?

Appropriating symbols of masculinity for women. Brochure of the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent: “The ‘Saint Laurent Revolution’ conquered all women.”

Dichtomy: Saint Laurent does not see himself as participant in a larger movement. “Yves Saint Laurent enlarged the couturier's sphere of influence by allowing the client to express herself freely.”

Saint Laurent compared to God, working this time with cloth and concepts instead of with bone, it goes as far as to say in bold type: “Yves Saint Laurent created a new gender, a blend of female and male.”

Teboul, a biographer, says “his” women are “neither sluts nor slaves” but at times both at once. Freedom comes through shifting.

Saint Laurent as Ruler/Savior of Fashion System

Saint Laurent is the author supplying the codes by which women may be read but in the everyday world of experience women take authorship and assign their own purposes and meanings to the clothing and to their own self-presentation.

Freedom and Constraint

Control is Hidden 1958 L’Elephant blanc evening

dress for Dior. “A boned corset anchors the dress but allows the delusion of a free-swinging cone.”  

Catherine Deneuve says masculine look in the collections gives woman “strength to stand up to encounters that can become confrontational” during the day, and at night “when we go back to the people we are close to, they help us look seductive.”

Saint Laurent uses a rhetoric of empowerment.

Contrast: Natural Body Form (Gina Lollobrigida)

Expanding the Boundaries of Ethnicity

Diversity ran strong in both his creations and his business practices. He was the first to hire Black

and Asian models.

Incorporated many ethnic elements. 1976-1977 Russian Collection, in 1977-1978 Chinese inspired fashion,1992 Royal Indian designs.

Saint Laurent brings ethnic styles and fabric/materials into couture domain. changes the ethnic dynamic

and changes the expectations one has of couture.

1967 African Collection

Hybrid Ethnicity: Appropriation or Colonization?

Uniting diverse ethnic elements under a couture sensibility.

Highlights unrecognized beauty.

de Certeau’s concept of “appropriation.” In the sense he uses the term he looks at less powerful people taking aspects of colonizer’s religion, culture and changing the orientation to reflect native practices. Reversal. Fashion a means to bring the

attraction and allure of rich and varied forms of expression within French culture.

Colonial couture, exoticism or an enrichment and expansion of codes?

Inversion: counter-revolutionary to 60s. Russian Peasant most expensive show ever seen in Paris

Views on Social Class Challenges class boundaries from

within the established fashion system, with exquisite materials and design.

Gives a presence to garments that were not recognized. Jumpsuit, pea coat.

Proletarian garments are brought into the domain of couture. Transforming traditional items such as the fisherman’s reefer coat.

Teboul “the man who stole so much from the street, only to return everything as timeless shapes.”

Saint Laurent says he adores everything about the age he lives in. Adores the time. Would have like to be a beatnik. Condemns wealthy.

Reefer Jacket 1962

Subversion of Class Boundaries for Amusement of the Bourgeoisie?

Polan (2014) says: “He took the sailor’s pea coat, the Norman agricultural worker’s cotton smock, the sportsman’s blazer and his shorts, the military man’s trench coat and the grouse-moor stalker’s plus-fours or knickerbockers, and gave them to women, urging his models to thrust their hands into their pockets and swagger a bit. Catherine Deneuve summed it up when Saint Laurent designed the clothes for her 1967 film, Belle de Jour: ‘I am dressed by Saint Laurent. I like my clothes to be modern, enticing, with a little bit of a come-on.’”

Sexuality, Power and SuccessFashion is connected intimately with the body and to identity.

Becomes a means of expression and a triumph over adversity and hatred felt throughout his life.

Recurring conflict: bullied/tormented as a child and as an adult in army, and abused during his breakdown hospital, criticsm as a couturier.

Difficult to move forward, is attacked, retreats and reemerges.

Going over to the women’s side…. (Teboul)

Giving women a power he did not have himself.

Feels ill at the thought of going to school. “For me school was an atrocious experience.”

Beaten. Vows he will one day be famous.

“Kids have no mercy. But while they persecuted me I used to say to myself, ‘One day you’re going to be famous.’ That was my way of getting my revenge.”

Fashion was an expression of agency. Power. Something for which he could received praise.

Yves Saint Laurent and Mother 1960

Bringing Art and Fashion Together

Belief that fashion was within the world of art, couture an art form, and dress was a canvas.

Mondrian, Monet, Picasso, Matisse inspire him. His creations bridge the divide between artist and craftsperson, the material and commercial world of clothing and the high culture of art.

August 1965 collection, the Mondrian dress.

Friendship with Andy Warhol. Juxtapositions traditional canvas with images of mundane objects.

Anarchist Millionaires? Partnership With Bergé Creative genius and business/financial leadership. Blurring between

professional and personal life.

Distances himself from the business of fashion while creating new approaches to branding and marketing.

Innovations occur within the established system as he changes the business culture. Introduces immaterial values and new business models.

Challenges the definition of luxury as something rare and distant from everyday life and conventions by making it tangible and practical. In doing so changes the dynamic of luxury.

Severs it from the aristocratic realm. Can be trendy and visible, within reach, known and practical.

Changes material and commercial aspect of clothing and elevates it bringing it to the world of art, infusing it with culture and ethnicity and with desire and social meaning and purpose. Indeed one might say progress.

Undertones of Enlightment ideals (with all the prejudices this entails)

Though Fashion Saint Laurent is Triumphant

Fashion in Saint Laurent’s case by poignant personal experience. He is not only the couturier in a scientist’s white coat but someone who has

thrown himself fully in his work, his only escape from trauma.

Saint Laurent is personified in the clothing, they become a reflection of his self and his charisma. There is a great deal of egoism. “Couturasses” cultivate a false brand identity to extend to the consumer

who appropriates a source of power to affirm a self.

Saint Laurent has not simply formulated a marketing strategy.

Links fashion to a variety of fields: in abstracting ideas from a variety of sources and redefining them. Connects systems of values, ideals and practices not necessarily linked creating new social meanings and transmitting new ideologies. Changes visual codes that signify a lifestyle, social status, class.

New collective and social representations are created through new forms of clothing.

Continuity. 1956 pre-Saint Laurent advertisement for Dior Couture at Saks 5th Ave. 1980’s YSL Vogue pants suit pattern

Conclusion and Legacy Dualisms such as couture vs. ready-to-wear: an impossible

combination but makes the circle complete.

Profit/business vs. artistic inclinations: elite artist attitude but he deals with everyday concerns of business. He provides Bergé with opportunities for business success and expansion.

Personal life influences his design. Drive and emotion state fuels his passion to succeed.

Mother (also Bergé) is an anchor, provides support, dependent.

Difficulty in establishing relationships with others.

His legacy: Women free to wear more diverse fashion, express identity and communicate with others in a way which before was not possible.

Provides a new identity for the French nation. Aligns it with contemporary art, popular culture, globalization, new ideas

An imperfect person giving something to the world. Catalyst for change. Innovations not confined to the elite sphere he inhabited.