Les fondateurs de Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent stood at the top of Christian Dior's atelier staircase in January 1958, twenty-one years old, wearing a dark suit that did not quite fit. He had been appointed artistic director three months earlier, after Dior's sudden death. The collection he was about to show—his first under his own name, though still under the Dior banner—featured a dropped waistline that sat just above the hip. The silhouette was called Trapèze. Women's Wear Daily ran it on the front page. The house sold every piece.

He lasted three years at Dior before the board pushed him out. The official reason was military service. The actual reason was that he had moved too quickly, shown beatnik influences, referenced the street. In 1961, with his partner Pierre Bergé handling the business side, he opened his own house at 30 bis rue Spontini. The logo, drawn by Cassandre, interlocked the initials in a way that looked like wrought iron. It still does.

Oran and Paris

Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria, in 1936. His father managed an insurance company. His mother dressed in Dior and Balenciaga, ordering from Paris and having the pieces shipped across the Mediterranean. He learned to sketch by copying her fashion magazines. At seventeen, he won a design competition sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat. The prize included an introduction to Michel de Brunhoff, editor of French Vogue, who sent him to Dior.

Dior hired him immediately. Saint Laurent worked as an assistant for two years, learning construction and drape. When Dior died of a heart attack in Montecatini, the house needed someone who already understood the atelier. Saint Laurent was the obvious choice, though not the safe one.

At his own house, he moved faster. The first collection, shown in January 1962, included a pea coat rendered in navy wool, cut close to the body with brass buttons. It was a direct lift from the French Navy, the kind of thing a sailor wore on leave in Toulon. Saint Laurent put it on a model and showed it at the Intercontinental. The fashion press called it radical. It was a coat.

Le Smoking

The tuxedo jacket arrived in 1966. Saint Laurent had been looking at Marlene Dietrich photographs, the ones where she wore men's tailoring on set in the thirties. He took a single-breasted dinner jacket, nipped the waist, and cut the trousers slim. The fabric was grain de poudre, a fine worsted with a matte finish that does not shine under lights. He paired it with a silk bow tie and a white shirt with a soft collar.

The jacket was not the first time a woman had worn trousers on a runway. Chanel had shown beach pyjamas in the twenties. But Le Smoking was not leisure wear. It was evening dress, and it was explicitly borrowed from the male wardrobe without apology. Certain restaurants in Paris refused to seat women wearing it. The house sold it anyway.

What made the piece work was the cut. Saint Laurent had trained in haute couture, which meant he understood how a shoulder should sit and where a lapel should roll. The jacket was not an approximation of menswear. It was menswear, adjusted for a different body. The difference mattered.

Rue de Tournon

The atelier moved to 5 avenue Marceau in 1974. By then, Saint Laurent had opened Rive Gauche, a ready-to-wear line that put his tailoring within reach of women who did not order couture. The prices were still high, but the pieces were available off the rack. A blazer cost around 2,000 francs. You could buy it on a Thursday and wear it on Saturday.

The collections through the seventies pulled from North Africa, from Russia, from Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The references were not subtle. A 1976 collection called Ballets Russes featured embroidered tunics and harem trousers that looked like costumes. The tailoring, though, stayed clean. A Saint Laurent blazer in 1979 looked like a Saint Laurent blazer in 1966, which was the point.

He worked with the same cutters for decades. The atelier had a rhythm. Fittings happened in the morning. Adjustments were made in the afternoon. The next morning, the piece came back for another fitting. This is how haute couture works, but Saint Laurent was unusually specific about balance. A sleeve had to hang without pulling. A skirt had to move when the model walked, but not flare. If it did not work, he started over.

Bergé and the Business

Pierre Bergé ran the business side from the beginning. He negotiated licensing deals, opened boutiques, and handled the press. The relationship between the two men was famously turbulent and famously effective. Bergé once said, in an interview with Le Figaro, that his job was to make sure Saint Laurent could work without distraction. The house became profitable within five years.

The licensing deals were extensive. By the eighties, the Saint Laurent name appeared on perfume, menswear, accessories, and eyewear. The quality varied. The haute couture atelier, however, remained separate. Saint Laurent continued to show twice a year in Paris, and the pieces were still made by hand.

He retired in 2002, citing exhaustion. The final couture show took place at the Centre Pompidou in January. The runway featured forty years of work, shown chronologically. Models wore Le Smoking, the Mondrian dress, the safari jacket, the peasant blouses. The audience stood for ten minutes. Saint Laurent came out for the bow and wept.

What Remains

The house continued under different designers. Tom Ford took over ready-to-wear in 1999, while Saint Laurent was still designing couture. Ford's work was sharper, more overtly sexual. The tailoring was tight. The colours were saturated. It sold extremely well, which was the point. Gucci Group, which owned the brand by then, wanted product that moved.

Hedi Slimane arrived in 2012 and renamed the ready-to-wear line Saint Laurent Paris, dropping the Yves. The decision infuriated Bergé, who was still alive and still vocal. Slimane's aesthetic was rooted in rock and roll, in skinny trousers and leather jackets. The tailoring was narrow, sometimes uncomfortably so. It was also commercially successful. The house's revenue doubled during his tenure.

Anthony Vaccarello took over in 2016. His approach has been quieter. The silhouettes are long and lean, often cut on the bias. The tailoring remains, though it is less central than it was under Saint Laurent himself. A recent collection featured Le Smoking in black grain de poudre, cut almost identically to the 1966 original. It is still in the permanent collection. It still works.

The haute couture atelier closed in 2002. The archive remains at 5 avenue Marceau, overseen by the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent. The pieces are stored in climate-controlled rooms, organised by year. Researchers can request access. The blazers still hang properly.