🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 199 (from laksa125)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa199.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1","crawl_time":1776183503,"first_indexed_time":1645085392,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,museeyslparis!\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1 s443","src_root_hash":"13582760437977230799","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"The Saint Laurent women - Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris","meta_descriptions":["Throughout his life, Yves Saint Laurent was surrounded by exceptional women who nourished and inspired his work as a couturier."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Yves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\nYves Saint Laurent was always very close to women. Models, actresses, authors, artists, friends and collaborators―they were all essential to his inspiration and his work.\n As the couturier said in 1997: \n“Women and I love each other. My collections are love stories.”\nChapter 1\nThe family circle\nYves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding.\nIn Algeria, where he was born, Yves Saint Laurent was raised in a feminine environment, surrounded by his mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, his maternal grandmother, his great aunt and his two sisters.\nAn avid reader of fashion magazines, such as \nVogue\n, \nL'Illustration\n and \nLe\n \nJardin des Modes\n, he was fascinated by his mother, who “spent most of her time dressing,” and by the ensembles she would wear from one evening to the next.\nYves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\nYves has always been interested in fashion. At three, he would cry if he didn't like my dress. [...] He did the sets for the Yacht Club and for receptions, as well as the costumes for the dance school.\nYves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès.\nGrowing up in an environment that inspired him, Yves Saint Laurent’s early creative streak first became apparent in the paper dolls that he would dress up to the delight of his first audience, his two sisters Michèle and Brigitte. Born in 1942 and 1945, they were close to their elder brother, with whom they maintained a very tight bond. To further entertain them, Yves would invent adventure stories that took place in an imaginary world into which they would happily enter.\nEvery time I design a collection, I rediscover my childhood, I commune with it.\nYves Saint Laurent\nChapter 2\nThe idolized couturiers\nSuit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990.\nIn 1968, seven years after the launching of his own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent was referred to by Gabrielle Chanel as her heir apparent, “because someday someone will have to continue what I’ve done.” The legendary couturier, who revolutionized the feminine wardrobe by freeing it from the corset and by offering the comfort of trousers, was gradually withdrawing from the fashion world, which had been overtaken by the events of May ’68 and the winds of modernity inspired by the youth movement and street fashion, something which she had trouble understanding.\nYves Saint Laurent, on the other hand, was inspired by precisely this revolutionary atmosphere that led him to create the wardrobe of the modern woman. In the spirit of what Gabrielle Chanel had accomplished at the beginning of the 20\nth\n century, he sought to free women from the clothing that hindered them. While offering them a modern sense of comfort and elegance, he would design a wardrobe that would place women on a par with men.\nChanel gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent empowered them.\nPierre Bergé\n\"Dim Dam Dom : Yves Saint Laurent répond à Mademoiselle Chanel\", Remy Grumbach, March 10, 1968, collection RTF \/ ORTF © INA\nYves Saint Laurent also greatly admired the work of the renowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, who had been very close to the Surrealist group during the years between the two World Wars. Her oeuvre, nurtured by her friendship and collaborative work with artists and writers such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, clearly stood apart from the neoclassical orientation of fashion at the time.\nEvening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000.\nYves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli shared a passion for the ornamental embellishment of clothing and for daring colors such as the “shocking pink” so associated with the latter. Saint Laurent would pay tribute to her work in several of his designs, such as in his “broken mirror” jacket, a motif that Schiaparelli had used in 1935 for an embroidered jacket.\nChapter 3\nThe fashion models of the early years\nEvening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962.\nIn 1955, when he began working at Christian Dior\nat the age of 18, Yves Saint Laurent met Victoire Doutreleau, the couture house's star model.\nShe quickly became Yves Saint Laurent’s favorite model, despite not having the measurements usually associated with runway models―she was smaller and less slender. And yet it was her way of wearing and embodying the garment that made such an impression on the young couturier. It must have been then that he realized the importance of designing directly on a fashion model, who not only wears the garment but moves with it and brings it to life.\nVictoire followed Yves Saint Laurent when he founded his own fashion house in 1961.\nFrom one collection to another, the same image presents itself to me: that of Victoire, the sublime model and marvelous muse.”\nYves Saint Laurent\nYves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963.\nFollowing in the footsteps of Victoire, another model caught the designer’s attention. Red-haired, skinny and with a slightly androgynous face, Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain was 19 when she introduced herself to Yves Saint Laurent. Her carefree attitude and way of presenting herself made her seem, in the couturier’s eyes, the embodiment of modernity and energy of the street that the couturier was drawn to.\nDanielle Luquet de Saint Germain played the role of muse for many of the couturier’s iconic garments: It was with her in mind that he created his first tuxedo-inspired \nsmokings\n and his first safari jacket, as well as the infamous transparent black blouse that caused a scandal after Danielle paraded it topless down the runway.\nChapter 4\nThe close friends\nYves Saint Laurent met one of his closest friends, Betty Catroux, in a nightclub in 1967. They immediately become inseparable. Betty Catroux became his double, his twin, his accomplice. Together, they cultivated a “taste for everything seedy” and for all that Parisian nightlife had to offer.\nYves fell head over heels in love, a physical love. Although I was androgynous and asexual―he was certainly attracted to that―our rapport was not only physical; we also resembled each other morally, mentally, which was pretty incredible ... and his astute mind realized that I could be his soul mate.\nBetty Catroux\nYves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\nAlong with Betty Catroux, Louise de La Falaise was one of Yves Saint Laurent’s closest friends. Born in England in 1948, she was the daughter of a French aristocrat and an Anglo-Irish woman. When they met in 1968, Yves Saint Laurent was immediately charmed by this radiant young woman. At the time, she would dress in flea market finds and create for herself a look that was as elegant as it was original.\nYves Saint Laurent went everywhere with Betty and Loulou: They would be seen together at runway shows, parties, trips overseas―they were an inseparable trio.\nLoulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\nChapter 5\nThe colleagues\nLoulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\nAs well as being a close friend, Loulou de la Falaise worked alongside Yves Saint Laurent at the couture house. She entered the couturier’s private workspace―the Studio as it was called―in 1972, where she remained beside the couturier for thirty years. She was quickly put in charge of accessories, which she preferred to be oversized and colorful, and was also responsible for the knitwear line.\nClara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine.\nPress officer for the SAINT LAURENT\nrive gauche\nready-to-wear line from 1968, Clara Saint took an active part in the life of the fashion house. She was a close friend of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and introduced them to Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso.\nPassionate about cinema, Clara participated in the production of several advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent fragrances, as the famous \nOpium\n, launched by the house in 1977.\nYves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\nAnother permanent presence in Yves Saint Laurent’s Studio was Anne-Marie Muñoz-Yagüe. She previously had worked at Christian Dior, arriving there in February 1951, where she discovered the ins and outs of haute couture. It was there that she met Yves Saint Laurent in 1955.\nTheir paths briefly parted when Yves Saint Laurent left Dior. Anne-Marie Muñoz went on to work at Guy Laroche for a year, before joining the House of Yves Saint Laurent in 1963 as director of the Studio. She oversaw the entire creative process for more than 150 haute couture and ready-to-wear collections at the couture house until its closure in 2002.\nMireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966.\n“\nThe couture house is like an anthill bursting with energy, in which nearly two hundred people work, mostly women. A deep complicity existed between Saint Laurent and everyone working there, as reflected by what Madame Catherine, a former workshop director had to say: “He does not need to speak. I understand before he speaks.”\nUnder the leadership of the workshop directors, Yves Saint Laurent’s seamstresses earned his deep trust to realize his most extraordinary creations, as he made clear in an interview:\n“Beside me [...] there are also the seamstresses, those who work by hand and who are the holders and last custodians of the secrets of haute couture [...]. Apart from them [...] there are the women who work at the machines, day and night. I sometimes make them destroy everything they’ve done. I would never offend them by letting them work on something without believing in it myself.” \nExtract from the film \"Yves Saint Laurent, 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris\", David Teboul, 2002 © David Teboul \/ Swan Productions\nEnglish subtitles are available through the settings menu in the player\nChapter 6\nThe Yves Saint Laurent spirit\nYves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982.\nAmong the women close to Yves Saint Laurent, there were those who embodied his creative spirit, obviously through the clothes they wore, but also in their attitude.\n Catherine Deneuve was twenty-two when she first met Yves Saint Laurent. When she learned that she would be presented to the Queen of England, the young woman chose Yves Saint Laurent to dress her. In 1966, the actress became the godmother of sorts of the first SAINT LAURENT \nrive gauche\n ready-to-wear boutique, an embodiment of the youth and modernity that Yves Saint Laurent sought in his revolutionary clothing line.\n A faithful friend to the end, Catherine Deneuve attended all the important anniversary celebrations of the couture house, up until its very last runway show, held at the Pompidou Center on January 22, 2002, where she closed the evening by singing with Laetitia Casta, “Ma plus belle histoire d’amour” (My Most Beautiful Love story) by Barbara.\nPaloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971.\nMeeting Pablo Picasso's youngest daughter, Paloma, was an “aesthetic jolt” for Yves Saint Laurent. She embodied the new face of an anti-establishment freedom that the designer was forever pursuing in his work.\nAlmost immediately, Paloma gave him the impetus to become more audacious, to “kick the anthill” as it were. It was her “flea market” look, at once elegant, daring and innovative―composed of turbans, fur boleros and dresses from the thirties and forties―that would inspire Yves Saint Laurent when designing his Summer 1971 collection, which came to be known as “La collection du scandale” (The Scandal Collection).\nYves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982.\nAs mentioned above, Betty Catroux was not only Yves Saint Laurent’s close friend, but also the embodiment of the Saint Laurent style. Even before they met, she already had an affinity for men's clothes, in which she felt the most herself. Betty Catroux played an essential role in the work of Yves Saint Laurent, who for several years had defined his own style by drawing on the codes of the masculine wardrobe. He kept the cut, comfort and practicality of men’s clothing while adjusting them to a feminine silhouette, combining simplicity and elegance.\nBetty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s.\nChapter 7\nThe fashion models\nCape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989.\nWhen designing a couture garment, the presence of a model is essential.\nUnlike Gabrielle Chanel who worked on inanimate mannequins, Yves Saint Laurent could not design without a live fashion model beside him, as he felt that they were integral to giving life to the garment. Very often, it was with particular fashion models in mind that Yves Saint Laurent designed his collections.\nYves Saint Laurent was the first couturier to include black models in a runway show. Several, such as Katoucha Niane, Mounia Orosemane and Amalia Vairelli, would go on to become his favorite fashion models. He appreciated how the models’ skin tones complemented the colors he used in his fabrics.\nOne of the models he frequently used, Amalia Vairelli, worked both as an in-house model and in runway shows, where she was often presented with “The Heart,” a sumptuous piece of jewelry, considered a sort of fetish by the couturier, which would be worn by his favorite model.\nModels Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\nWhen I see a fashion model, I know what I'm going to design for her. It's like love at first sight. I fall in love.\nYves Saint Laurent\nClaudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show.\nThe Heart was also often worn by Laetitia Casta, who met Yves Saint Laurent in 1996. Despite not having the slender silhouette typical of models employed by the couture house, Laetitia Casta very quickly became one of the couturier’s favorite models, the one he chose to wear, on multiple occasions, the wedding dress that closed every runway show. Yves Saint Laurent nicknamed her his \"bird of paradise,\" and designed a dress for his Spring-Summer 2000 collection with her in mind, fashioned entirely with feathers from this exotic bird.\nExtract from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection. © Yves Saint Laurent © Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits Réservés\nChapter 8\nThe clients\nYves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974.\nBeginning with the very first collection presented by the couture house, a number of celebrities attended the young couturier's runway shows and became his clients. Seated in the front rows, they included some of the most prominent members of society at the time, such as Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and the Countess de Ribes, but also international celebrities such as the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor and Lauren Bacall. Later, several wives of leading French politicians would also choose to dress in Yves Saint Laurent, including Claude Pompidou, Danielle Mitterrand, Monique Lang and Bernadette Chirac.\nAmong the rich and famous that gravitated to Yves Saint Laurent, the American Nan Kempner would become one of the couture house's most loyal clients. She met Yves Saint Laurent at Dior in 1958. The elegance that characterized her style earned her praise from Diana Vreeland, the renowned American fashion editor: “There is no such thing as a chic American woman. The only exception is Nan Kempner.”\nOver the course of her life, Nan Kempner assembled a wardrobe that included a thousand dresses, three hundred and seventy-six bearing the label of her favorite designer. She said of Yves Saint Laurent: “I don't believe there is a single woman in the world who has not been influenced by him.”\nAmerican women provided me with such inspiration. Nan Kempner has always represented in my eyes a modern, free, independent and elegant woman. She is probably the one who wore my clothes the best, and with whom I had the longest and greatest bond.\nYves Saint Laurent\nYves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979.\nCharlotte Aillaud, an icon of the vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Prés social scene and sister of Juliette Gréco, met Yves Saint Laurent in 1964 through Françoise Sagan. She would become one of his most loyal clients, as shown by her letters to the couturier kept by the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris: “My very dear Yves, just to tell you how moved I was the other evening watching these marvels from your wonderful universe paraded before me. Watching this magical farandole, I was flooded with memories, and Gilberte's daughter at the ball from \nIn Search of Lost Time\n came to mind: ‘I found her beautiful, she looked like my youth.’ I embrace you as I love you: deeply.”\nChapter 9\nThe artists\nA number of women artists also played an important role in the work of the couturier. They allowed him to pursue his interest in the arts and the world of entertainment.\nYves Saint Laurent maintained a special bond with Claude Lalanne, the only artist with whom he collaborated with on a collection. The couturier asked her to make a set of “imprint” accessories for his Fall-Winter 1969 collection. Other jewels designed by her would follow, as well as helmets and headdresses inspired by plant motifs dear to Claude Lalanne. Their collaboration lasted several years until 1983.\nWhile working at Dior in 1956, Yves Saint Laurent met Roland Petit’s partner, the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. They bonded immediately and quickly became close friends.\nZizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the \"Cyrano de Bergerac\" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959.\nYves Saint Laurent created extravagant feather costumes for her, fulfilling a desire to   design for the stage that had been with him since adolescence: “In a music hall, everything is there. One only needs three things to conjure up an entire world. With a bundle of black feathers make a big hat. Then perch it on a tall, naked black girl, and when she arrives on stage, let it become nothing less than a \ncoup de théâtre\n [...] And the music hall, even more so than the theater, is life turned upside down. Poor materials can be made sumptuous and vice versa.\nSylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the \"Johnny et Sylvie\" tour, 1973.\nYves Saint Laurent also designed stage outfits for the singer Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday’s companion. He made several outfits for her, including a golden jumpsuit for her performance at the Olympia Theater in 1972. It was not only a very sensual garment, but also comfortable to wear, so much so that the singer continued to wear it on television and on tour after Yves Saint Laurent offered it to her: “In general, on stage, it is important to avoid relaxed clothing in favor of more structured creations. A designer must adapt his work knowing this. The most beautiful haute couture dress will not necessarily serve as a good stage costume. Saint Laurent was well aware of this.”\nChapter 10\nThe women authors\nCatherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973.\nYves Saint Laurent was close to several women of letters throughout his life.\nAs a young man, he met Françoise Sagan. It was she who, in 1967, urged him to publish, through the Tchou publishing house, his album of the adventures of \nLa vilaine Lulu\n, which Yves Saint Laurent began drawing ten years earlier while still working at Dior.\nFor the most part, they would end up meeting at social events to which they both had been invited. They would speak little to each other but were “united” by their similar lives, which they felt were defined by “terrifying burdens and responsibilities, incompatible with our idea of what life should be and by our very nature.” In 1980, in an article she published on Yves Saint Laurent, Sagan said, “I knew [...] that he was a shy, secretive, talented and headstrong person. I would go on to learn that he was also lucid, passionate, uncompromising and generous.”\nCostume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite.\nIn 1965, Yves Saint Laurent, who had done stage designs for the Renaud-Barrault theatrical company, designed the costumes for a play by Marguerite Duras, \nEntire Days in the Trees\n. He admired this woman of letters of whom he said, “She is undoubtedly the greatest French writer of our time. Her universe, her world view and lucidity speak to me. Rarely has one written about women with such emotion and sensuality.”\nThe admiration is mutual. Marguerite Duras said of him, “I have never ceased to see him as a writer. And however removed from language his work may seem, I have never seen it as distinct from writing. He sees everyone as if the person before him were an entire world, and that's when he takes control of you. [...] He sees things you don't know about yourself.”\nDuras also wrote about the launch of the SAINT LAURENT \nrive gauche\n ready-to-wear line in 1966, which for her solved the problem of elitism posed by haute couture.\nPierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982.\nL’admiration est réciproque puisque Marguerite Duras dit de lui : « Je n’ai jamais cessé de le voir comme un écrivain. Et si loin des mots que puisse paraître son travail, je ne l’ai jamais séparé de l’écriture. Il voit chacun comme étant le monde entier et c’est dans cette situation-là qu’il se l’approprie. (...) Il voit de vous ce que vous ne savez pas que vous avez. », Marguerite Duras.\nDuras commente également le lancement de la ligne de prêt-à-porter SAINT LAURENT \nrive gauche\n, en 1966,  qui pour elle résout le problème de l’élitisme que posait la haute couture.\nYves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966.\nAs the ultimate tribute to the emancipation of women and to their equality with men, Yves Saint Laurent designed the costume worn by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman to be admitted to the Académie Française. She was elected a member of the Academy on March 6, 1980, and entered the building on January 22, 1981, wearing a velvet houppelande tunic specially designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the occasion.\n“\nMadam, it is a great joy to welcome you to this old and illustrious house where you find yourself, certainly not the first to enter it, but the first of your sex to do so […] a peaceful yet vibrantly revolutionary moment, which you manifest, on your own, as one of the most significant events that fill our long and glorious history. I will not shy away from saying, Madam, that it is not because you are a woman that you are here today: it is because you are a great writer.” ― \nJean d´Ormesson on the occasion of Marguerite Yourcenar's admission to the Académie Française, 1980.\n The costume Yves Saint Laurent designed for Marguerite Yourcenar contributed to her “stunning entrance” at this historic event, in the words of the literary and theatrical critic Matthieu Galey.\n[...] My dream is to give women the basics of a classic wardrobe which, escaping the fashion of the moment, gives them greater self-confidence. Through these clothes, I hope to make them happier.\nYves Saint Laurent","attrs_markdown":"![](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/tr?id=139280023339570&ev=PageView&noscript=1)\n\n[Accéder au contenu principal](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#main)\n\n[Chronicles](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories)\n\nThe Saint Laurent women\n\nIntroduction\n\n- [Introduction](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#introduction)\n- Chapter 1  [The family circle](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-family-circle)\n- Chapter 2  [The idolized couturiers](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-idolized-couturiers)\n- Chapter 3  [The fashion models of the early years](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-fashion-models-of-the-early-years)\n- Chapter 4  [The close friends](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-close-friends)\n- Chapter 5  [The colleagues](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-colleagues)\n- Chapter 6  [The Yves Saint Laurent spirit](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-yves-saint-laurent-spirit)\n- Chapter 7  [The fashion models](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-fashion-models)\n- Chapter 8  [The clients](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-clients)\n- Chapter 9  [The artists](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-artists)\n- Chapter 10  [The women authors](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#the-women-authors)\n\n![]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\n![]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\n# The Saint Laurent women\n### Yves Saint Laurent was always very close to women. Models, actresses, authors, artists, friends and collaborators―they were all essential to his inspiration and his work.\nAs the couturier said in 1997: *“Women and I love each other. My collections are love stories.”*\n\nChapter 1\n\n## The family circle\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/FAMILLE-DP1947-001FA.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding., © Droits réservés]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\nIn Algeria, where he was born, Yves Saint Laurent was raised in a feminine environment, surrounded by his mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, his maternal grandmother, his great aunt and his two sisters.\n\nAn avid reader of fashion magazines, such as *Vogue*, *L'Illustration* and *Le* *Jardin des Modes*, he was fascinated by his mother, who “spent most of her time dressing,” and by the ensembles she would wear from one evening to the next.\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/36274\/YSL-et-sa-M%C3%A9re-mariage-de-Loulou-De-La-Falaise-le-11-Juin-1977.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\n> Yves has always been interested in fashion. At three, he would cry if he didn't like my dress. \\[...\\] He did the sets for the Yacht Club and for receptions, as well as the costumes for the dance school.\n> \n> Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès., © François Pagès \/ Paris Match \/ Scoop](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/PM-0020112_INC_013116.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès., © François Pagès \/ Paris Match \/ Scoop]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès.\n\n© François Pagès \/ Paris Match \/ Scoop\n\nGrowing up in an environment that inspired him, Yves Saint Laurent’s early creative streak first became apparent in the paper dolls that he would dress up to the delight of his first audience, his two sisters Michèle and Brigitte. Born in 1942 and 1945, they were close to their elder brother, with whom they maintained a very tight bond. To further entertain them, Yves would invent adventure stories that took place in an imaginary world into which they would happily enter.\n\n> Every time I design a collection, I rediscover my childhood, I commune with it.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\nChapter 2\n\n## The idolized couturiers\n\n![Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36272\/MAR.HC1990E042_0076.jpg)\n\n![Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau]()\n\nSuit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990.\n\n© Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau\n\nIn 1968, seven years after the launching of his own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent was referred to by Gabrielle Chanel as her heir apparent, “because someday someone will have to continue what I’ve done.” The legendary couturier, who revolutionized the feminine wardrobe by freeing it from the corset and by offering the comfort of trousers, was gradually withdrawing from the fashion world, which had been overtaken by the events of May ’68 and the winds of modernity inspired by the youth movement and street fashion, something which she had trouble understanding.\n\nYves Saint Laurent, on the other hand, was inspired by precisely this revolutionary atmosphere that led him to create the wardrobe of the modern woman. In the spirit of what Gabrielle Chanel had accomplished at the beginning of the 20th century, he sought to free women from the clothing that hindered them. While offering them a modern sense of comfort and elegance, he would design a wardrobe that would place women on a par with men.\n\n> Chanel gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent empowered them.\n> \n> Pierre Bergé\n\n\"Dim Dam Dom : Yves Saint Laurent répond à Mademoiselle Chanel\", Remy Grumbach, March 10, 1968, collection RTF \/ ORTF © INA\n\nYves Saint Laurent also greatly admired the work of the renowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, who had been very close to the Surrealist group during the years between the two World Wars. Her oeuvre, nurtured by her friendship and collaborative work with artists and writers such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, clearly stood apart from the neoclassical orientation of fashion at the time.\n\n![Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36365\/0121YSL_Couture_F-W_2000-01_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\n![Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau]()\n\nEvening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000.\n\n© Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli shared a passion for the ornamental embellishment of clothing and for daring colors such as the “shocking pink” so associated with the latter. Saint Laurent would pay tribute to her work in several of his designs, such as in his “broken mirror” jacket, a motif that Schiaparelli had used in 1935 for an embroidered jacket.\n\n[![Evening ensemble including the \"Miroir brisé\" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/NUM_HC1978H097PH02.01.jpg) ![Evening ensemble including the ]() Evening ensemble including the \"Miroir brisé\" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978. © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/NUM_HC1978H097PH02.01.jpg)\n\n[![Evening ensemble including the \"Miroir brisé\" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/NUM_HC1978H097PH03.01.jpg) ![Evening ensemble including the ]() Evening ensemble including the \"Miroir brisé\" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978. © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/NUM_HC1978H097PH03.01.jpg)\n\nChapter 3\n\n## The fashion models of the early years\n\n![Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/NUM_HC1962E097PH01.0165.jpg)\n\n![Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962., © Droits réservés]()\n\nEvening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\n[In 1955, when he began working at Christian Dior](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/les-annees-dior-1-1) at the age of 18, Yves Saint Laurent met Victoire Doutreleau, the couture house's star model.\n\nShe quickly became Yves Saint Laurent’s favorite model, despite not having the measurements usually associated with runway models―she was smaller and less slender. And yet it was her way of wearing and embodying the garment that made such an impression on the young couturier. It must have been then that he realized the importance of designing directly on a fashion model, who not only wears the garment but moves with it and brings it to life.\n\nVictoire followed Yves Saint Laurent when he founded his own fashion house in 1961.\n\n> From one collection to another, the same image presents itself to me: that of Victoire, the sublime model and marvelous muse.”\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/NUM_DEJAP1963PH035.01.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963., © Droits réservés]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\nFollowing in the footsteps of Victoire, another model caught the designer’s attention. Red-haired, skinny and with a slightly androgynous face, Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain was 19 when she introduced herself to Yves Saint Laurent. Her carefree attitude and way of presenting herself made her seem, in the couturier’s eyes, the embodiment of modernity and energy of the street that the couturier was drawn to.\n\nDanielle Luquet de Saint Germain played the role of muse for many of the couturier’s iconic garments: It was with her in mind that he created his first tuxedo-inspired *smokings* and his first safari jacket, as well as the infamous transparent black blouse that caused a scandal after Danielle paraded it topless down the runway.\n\n[![Tuxedo worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Spring-Summer 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/36253\/Sans-titre-15.jpg) ![Tuxedo worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Spring-Summer 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]() Tuxedo worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Spring-Summer 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney). © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/36253\/Sans-titre-15.jpg)\n\n[![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/36256\/Sans-titre-18.jpg) ![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]() Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney). © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/36256\/Sans-titre-18.jpg)\n\n[![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/36257\/Sans-titre-16_211223_113636.jpg) ![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]() Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney). © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/36257\/Sans-titre-16_211223_113636.jpg)\n\nChapter 4\n\n## The close friends\n\nYves Saint Laurent met one of his closest friends, Betty Catroux, in a nightclub in 1967. They immediately become inseparable. Betty Catroux became his double, his twin, his accomplice. Together, they cultivated a “taste for everything seedy” and for all that Parisian nightlife had to offer.\n\n> Yves fell head over heels in love, a physical love. Although I was androgynous and asexual―he was certainly attracted to that―our rapport was not only physical; we also resembled each other morally, mentally, which was pretty incredible ... and his astute mind realized that I could be his soul mate.\n> \n> Betty Catroux\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36359\/LOULOU-0008YSL_1980_RTW_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\nAlong with Betty Catroux, Louise de La Falaise was one of Yves Saint Laurent’s closest friends. Born in England in 1948, she was the daughter of a French aristocrat and an Anglo-Irish woman. When they met in 1968, Yves Saint Laurent was immediately charmed by this radiant young woman. At the time, she would dress in flea market finds and create for herself a look that was as elegant as it was original.\n\nYves Saint Laurent went everywhere with Betty and Loulou: They would be seen together at runway shows, parties, trips overseas―they were an inseparable trio.\n\n![Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/36275\/0006YSL_Betty-et-Loulou_1979_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\n![Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nLoulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\nChapter 5\n\n## The colleagues\n\n![Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36277\/YSL-et-Loulou-1975.jpg)\n\n![Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nLoulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\nAs well as being a close friend, Loulou de la Falaise worked alongside Yves Saint Laurent at the couture house. She entered the couturier’s private workspace―the Studio as it was called―in 1972, where she remained beside the couturier for thirty years. She was quickly put in charge of accessories, which she preferred to be oversized and colorful, and was also responsible for the knitwear line.\n\n![Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36353\/DPX-203-2AC.jpg)\n\n![Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]()\n\nClara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine.\n\n© Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR\n\nPress officer for the SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche* ready-to-wear line from 1968, Clara Saint took an active part in the life of the fashion house. She was a close friend of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and introduced them to Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso.\n\nPassionate about cinema, Clara participated in the production of several advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent fragrances, as the famous *Opium*, launched by the house in 1977.\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/Yves-Saint-Laurent-Anne-Marie-Mu%C3%B1oz-et-Pierre-Berg%C3%A9-dans-le-studio-5-avenue-Marceau-1977.-Photographie-de-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\nAnother permanent presence in Yves Saint Laurent’s Studio was Anne-Marie Muñoz-Yagüe. She previously had worked at Christian Dior, arriving there in February 1951, where she discovered the ins and outs of haute couture. It was there that she met Yves Saint Laurent in 1955.\n\nTheir paths briefly parted when Yves Saint Laurent left Dior. Anne-Marie Muñoz went on to work at Guy Laroche for a year, before joining the House of Yves Saint Laurent in 1963 as director of the Studio. She oversaw the entire creative process for more than 150 haute couture and ready-to-wear collections at the couture house until its closure in 2002.\n\n![Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966., © Pierre Lelièvre \/ Gamma Rapho](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/GRK5952802.jpg)\n\n![Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966., © Pierre Lelièvre \/ Gamma Rapho]()\n\nMireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966.\n\n© Pierre Lelièvre \/ Gamma Rapho\n\n*“*The couture house is like an anthill bursting with energy, in which nearly two hundred people work, mostly women. A deep complicity existed between Saint Laurent and everyone working there, as reflected by what Madame Catherine, a former workshop director had to say: “He does not need to speak. I understand before he speaks.”\n\nUnder the leadership of the workshop directors, Yves Saint Laurent’s seamstresses earned his deep trust to realize his most extraordinary creations, as he made clear in an interview:\n\n*“Beside me \\[...\\] there are also the seamstresses, those who work by hand and who are the holders and last custodians of the secrets of haute couture \\[...\\]. Apart from them \\[...\\] there are the women who work at the machines, day and night. I sometimes make them destroy everything they’ve done. I would never offend them by letting them work on something without believing in it myself.”*\n\nExtract from the film \"Yves Saint Laurent, 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris\", David Teboul, 2002 © David Teboul \/ Swan Productions\n\nEnglish subtitles are available through the settings menu in the player\n\nChapter 6\n\n## The Yves Saint Laurent spirit\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/DENEUVE-NUM_ANNIV1982PH579.01.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982., © Droits réservés]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\nAmong the women close to Yves Saint Laurent, there were those who embodied his creative spirit, obviously through the clothes they wore, but also in their attitude.\n\nCatherine Deneuve was twenty-two when she first met Yves Saint Laurent. When she learned that she would be presented to the Queen of England, the young woman chose Yves Saint Laurent to dress her. In 1966, the actress became the godmother of sorts of the first SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche* ready-to-wear boutique, an embodiment of the youth and modernity that Yves Saint Laurent sought in his revolutionary clothing line.\n\nA faithful friend to the end, Catherine Deneuve attended all the important anniversary celebrations of the couture house, up until its very last runway show, held at the Pompidou Center on January 22, 2002, where she closed the evening by singing with Laetitia Casta, “Ma plus belle histoire d’amour” (My Most Beautiful Love story) by Barbara.\n\n![Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971., © AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/XRA-1657018113.jpg)\n\n![Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971., © AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images]()\n\nPaloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971.\n\n© AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images\n\nMeeting Pablo Picasso's youngest daughter, Paloma, was an “aesthetic jolt” for Yves Saint Laurent. She embodied the new face of an anti-establishment freedom that the designer was forever pursuing in his work.\n\nAlmost immediately, Paloma gave him the impetus to become more audacious, to “kick the anthill” as it were. It was her “flea market” look, at once elegant, daring and innovative―composed of turbans, fur boleros and dresses from the thirties and forties―that would inspire Yves Saint Laurent when designing his Summer 1971 collection, which came to be known as “La collection du scandale” (The Scandal Collection).\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/NUM_ANNIV1982PH351.01.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982., © Droits réservés]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\nAs mentioned above, Betty Catroux was not only Yves Saint Laurent’s close friend, but also the embodiment of the Saint Laurent style. Even before they met, she already had an affinity for men's clothes, in which she felt the most herself. Betty Catroux played an essential role in the work of Yves Saint Laurent, who for several years had defined his own style by drawing on the codes of the masculine wardrobe. He kept the cut, comfort and practicality of men’s clothing while adjusting them to a feminine silhouette, combining simplicity and elegance.\n\n![Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/c-Droits-re%E2%95%A0%C3%BCserve%E2%95%A0%C3%BCs-Bettynum2_04.jpg)\n\n![Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s., © Droits réservés]()\n\nBetty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\nChapter 7\n\n## The fashion models\n\n![Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/10.-D%C3%A9fil%C3%A9-HC-PE-1989-%C2%A9-photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\n![Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau]()\n\nCape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989.\n\n© Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau\n\nWhen designing a couture garment, the presence of a model is essential.\n\nUnlike Gabrielle Chanel who worked on inanimate mannequins, Yves Saint Laurent could not design without a live fashion model beside him, as he felt that they were integral to giving life to the garment. Very often, it was with particular fashion models in mind that Yves Saint Laurent designed his collections.\n\nYves Saint Laurent was the first couturier to include black models in a runway show. Several, such as Katoucha Niane, Mounia Orosemane and Amalia Vairelli, would go on to become his favorite fashion models. He appreciated how the models’ skin tones complemented the colors he used in his fabrics.\n\nOne of the models he frequently used, Amalia Vairelli, worked both as an in-house model and in runway shows, where she was often presented with “The Heart,” a sumptuous piece of jewelry, considered a sort of fetish by the couturier, which would be worn by his favorite model.\n\n![Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/36280\/0002YSL_1984_Studio_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\n![Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nModels Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\n> When I see a fashion model, I know what I'm going to design for her. It's like love at first sight. I fall in love.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36361\/RTW-F-W-1996-97-1.jpg)\n\n![Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nClaudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\nThe Heart was also often worn by Laetitia Casta, who met Yves Saint Laurent in 1996. Despite not having the slender silhouette typical of models employed by the couture house, Laetitia Casta very quickly became one of the couturier’s favorite models, the one he chose to wear, on multiple occasions, the wedding dress that closed every runway show. Yves Saint Laurent nicknamed her his \"bird of paradise,\" and designed a dress for his Spring-Summer 2000 collection with her in mind, fashioned entirely with feathers from this exotic bird.\n\n[![Wedding gown worn by Laetitia Casta. Haute couture Spring-Summer 1998 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 1998. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/36264\/Pola-LC-3.jpg) ![Wedding gown worn by Laetitia Casta. Haute couture Spring-Summer 1998 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 1998. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés]() Wedding gown worn by Laetitia Casta. Haute couture Spring-Summer 1998 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 1998. Personal Polaroid from the house. © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/36264\/Pola-LC-3.jpg)\n\n[![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Autumn-Winter 1999 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, July 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/36263\/Pola-LC-2.jpg) ![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Autumn-Winter 1999 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, July 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés]() Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Autumn-Winter 1999 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, July 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house. © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/36263\/Pola-LC-2.jpg)\n\n[![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_gallery_1\/36260\/Pola-LC-1.jpg) ![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés]() Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house. © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/36260\/Pola-LC-1.jpg)\n\nExtract from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection. © Yves Saint Laurent © Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits Réservés\n\nChapter 8\n\n## The clients\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/DP1975-003PR.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974., © Droits réservés]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\nBeginning with the very first collection presented by the couture house, a number of celebrities attended the young couturier's runway shows and became his clients. Seated in the front rows, they included some of the most prominent members of society at the time, such as Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and the Countess de Ribes, but also international celebrities such as the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor and Lauren Bacall. Later, several wives of leading French politicians would also choose to dress in Yves Saint Laurent, including Claude Pompidou, Danielle Mitterrand, Monique Lang and Bernadette Chirac.\n\nAmong the rich and famous that gravitated to Yves Saint Laurent, the American Nan Kempner would become one of the couture house's most loyal clients. She met Yves Saint Laurent at Dior in 1958. The elegance that characterized her style earned her praise from Diana Vreeland, the renowned American fashion editor: “There is no such thing as a chic American woman. The only exception is Nan Kempner.”\n\nOver the course of her life, Nan Kempner assembled a wardrobe that included a thousand dresses, three hundred and seventy-six bearing the label of her favorite designer. She said of Yves Saint Laurent: “I don't believe there is a single woman in the world who has not been influenced by him.”\n\n> American women provided me with such inspiration. Nan Kempner has always represented in my eyes a modern, free, independent and elegant woman. She is probably the one who wore my clothes the best, and with whom I had the longest and greatest bond.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36223\/c-Guy-Marineau-YSL-C.Aillaud-1979-1.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979., © Guy Marineau]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979.\n\n© Guy Marineau\n\nCharlotte Aillaud, an icon of the vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Prés social scene and sister of Juliette Gréco, met Yves Saint Laurent in 1964 through Françoise Sagan. She would become one of his most loyal clients, as shown by her letters to the couturier kept by the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris: “My very dear Yves, just to tell you how moved I was the other evening watching these marvels from your wonderful universe paraded before me. Watching this magical farandole, I was flooded with memories, and Gilberte's daughter at the ball from *In Search of Lost Time* came to mind: ‘I found her beautiful, she looked like my youth.’ I embrace you as I love you: deeply.”\n\nChapter 9\n\n## The artists\n\nA number of women artists also played an important role in the work of the couturier. They allowed him to pursue his interest in the arts and the world of entertainment.\n\nYves Saint Laurent maintained a special bond with Claude Lalanne, the only artist with whom he collaborated with on a collection. The couturier asked her to make a set of “imprint” accessories for his Fall-Winter 1969 collection. Other jewels designed by her would follow, as well as helmets and headdresses inspired by plant motifs dear to Claude Lalanne. Their collaboration lasted several years until 1983.\n\nWhile working at Dior in 1956, Yves Saint Laurent met Roland Petit’s partner, the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. They bonded immediately and quickly became close friends.\n\n![Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the \"Cyrano de Bergerac\" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959., © Maurice Jarnoux \/ Paris Match \/ Scoop](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36356\/M1513234_INC_002.jpg)\n\n![Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the ]()\n\nZizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the \"Cyrano de Bergerac\" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959.\n\n© Maurice Jarnoux \/ Paris Match \/ Scoop\n\nYves Saint Laurent created extravagant feather costumes for her, fulfilling a desire to design for the stage that had been with him since adolescence: “In a music hall, everything is there. One only needs three things to conjure up an entire world. With a bundle of black feathers make a big hat. Then perch it on a tall, naked black girl, and when she arrives on stage, let it become nothing less than a *coup de théâtre* \\[...\\] And the music hall, even more so than the theater, is life turned upside down. Poor materials can be made sumptuous and vice versa.\n\nPrevious\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the \"Le Champagne rosé\" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/1637-174204.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the ]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the \"Le Champagne rosé\" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/1637-174204.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/1531426.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/1531426.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/2012-01-0497320.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/2012-01-0497320.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/2012-01-0566321.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/2012-01-0566321.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the \"Le Champagne rosé\" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/1637-174204.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the ]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the \"Le Champagne rosé\" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/1637-174204.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/1531426.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/1531426.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/2012-01-0497320.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/2012-01-0497320.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/2012-01-0566321.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/2012-01-0566321.jpg)\n\nNext\n\nSketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968.\n\n© Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the \"Johnny et Sylvie\" tour, 1973., © François Gaillard \/ Archives Filipacchi \/ Scoop](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/F1018174.jpg)\n\n![Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the ]()\n\nSylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the \"Johnny et Sylvie\" tour, 1973.\n\n© François Gaillard \/ Archives Filipacchi \/ Scoop\n\nYves Saint Laurent also designed stage outfits for the singer Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday’s companion. He made several outfits for her, including a golden jumpsuit for her performance at the Olympia Theater in 1972. It was not only a very sensual garment, but also comfortable to wear, so much so that the singer continued to wear it on television and on tour after Yves Saint Laurent offered it to her: “In general, on stage, it is important to avoid relaxed clothing in favor of more structured creations. A designer must adapt his work knowing this. The most beautiful haute couture dress will not necessarily serve as a good stage costume. Saint Laurent was well aware of this.”\n\n[![](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/2012_01_1555342.jpg) ![]() Interactive Elements See animated images](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/new-entry-1#card-interactive-target-53-53)\n\n![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/2012_01_1558344.jpg)\n\n![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]()\n\nSketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972.\n\n© Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/2012_01_1557343.jpg)\n\n![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]()\n\nSketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972.\n\n© Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/2012_01_1555342.jpg)\n\n![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]()\n\nSketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972.\n\n© Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent\n\nChapter 10\n\n## The women authors\n\n![Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973., © Christian Simonpiétri \/ Sygma Premium \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/Corbis-42-18674092.jpg)\n\n![Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973., © Christian Simonpiétri \/ Sygma Premium \/ via Getty Images]()\n\nCatherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973.\n\n© Christian Simonpiétri \/ Sygma Premium \/ via Getty Images\n\nYves Saint Laurent was close to several women of letters throughout his life.\n\nAs a young man, he met Françoise Sagan. It was she who, in 1967, urged him to publish, through the Tchou publishing house, his album of the adventures of *La vilaine Lulu*, which Yves Saint Laurent began drawing ten years earlier while still working at Dior.\n\nFor the most part, they would end up meeting at social events to which they both had been invited. They would speak little to each other but were “united” by their similar lives, which they felt were defined by “terrifying burdens and responsibilities, incompatible with our idea of what life should be and by our very nature.” In 1980, in an article she published on Yves Saint Laurent, Sagan said, “I knew \\[...\\] that he was a shy, secretive, talented and headstrong person. I would go on to learn that he was also lucid, passionate, uncompromising and generous.”\n\n![Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/2012_01_0882_1.jpg)\n\n![Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]()\n\nCostume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite.\n\n© Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent\n\nIn 1965, Yves Saint Laurent, who had done stage designs for the Renaud-Barrault theatrical company, designed the costumes for a play by Marguerite Duras, *Entire Days in the Trees*. He admired this woman of letters of whom he said, “She is undoubtedly the greatest French writer of our time. Her universe, her world view and lucidity speak to me. Rarely has one written about women with such emotion and sensuality.”\n\nThe admiration is mutual. Marguerite Duras said of him, “I have never ceased to see him as a writer. And however removed from language his work may seem, I have never seen it as distinct from writing. He sees everyone as if the person before him were an entire world, and that's when he takes control of you. \\[...\\] He sees things you don't know about yourself.”\n\nDuras also wrote about the launch of the SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche* ready-to-wear line in 1966, which for her solved the problem of elitism posed by haute couture.\n\n![Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/NUM_REBAR1982PH057.01.jpg)\n\n![Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982., © Droits réservés]()\n\nPierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982.\n\n© Droits réservés\n\nL’admiration est réciproque puisque Marguerite Duras dit de lui : « Je n’ai jamais cessé de le voir comme un écrivain. Et si loin des mots que puisse paraître son travail, je ne l’ai jamais séparé de l’écriture. Il voit chacun comme étant le monde entier et c’est dans cette situation-là qu’il se l’approprie. (...) Il voit de vous ce que vous ne savez pas que vous avez. », Marguerite Duras.\n\nDuras commente également le lancement de la ligne de prêt-à-porter SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche*, en 1966, qui pour elle résout le problème de l’élitisme que posait la haute couture.\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966., © AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/00899.jpg)\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966., © AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images]()\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966.\n\n© AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images\n\nAs the ultimate tribute to the emancipation of women and to their equality with men, Yves Saint Laurent designed the costume worn by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman to be admitted to the Académie Française. She was elected a member of the Academy on March 6, 1980, and entered the building on January 22, 1981, wearing a velvet houppelande tunic specially designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the occasion.\n\n“*Madam, it is a great joy to welcome you to this old and illustrious house where you find yourself, certainly not the first to enter it, but the first of your sex to do so \\[…\\] a peaceful yet vibrantly revolutionary moment, which you manifest, on your own, as one of the most significant events that fill our long and glorious history. I will not shy away from saying, Madam, that it is not because you are a woman that you are here today: it is because you are a great writer.” ―* Jean d´Ormesson on the occasion of Marguerite Yourcenar's admission to the Académie Française, 1980.\n\nThe costume Yves Saint Laurent designed for Marguerite Yourcenar contributed to her “stunning entrance” at this historic event, in the words of the literary and theatrical critic Matthieu Galey.\n\nPrevious\n\n[![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) ![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images]() Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey. © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) ![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg)\n\n[![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) ![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images]() Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey. © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) ![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg)\n\n[![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) ![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images]() Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey. © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg)\n\n[![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) ![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg)\n\nNext\n\nMarguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey.\n\n© Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images\n\n> \\[...\\] My dream is to give women the basics of a classic wardrobe which, escaping the fashion of the moment, gives them greater self-confidence. Through these clothes, I hope to make them happier.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\n## Share this chronicle:\n- [Share on Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmuseeyslparis.com%2Fen%2Fstories%2Fnew-entry-1)\n- [Share on Facebook](https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=https%3A%2F%2Fmuseeyslparis.com%2Fen%2Fstories%2Fnew-entry-1)\n\n## Current Exhibition\n[![](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/covers\/_ratio2x1_crop_1\/HomepageJMPerier.jpg) ![]()](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/exhibitions\/fermeture-temporaire-pour-travaux)\n\n[⭢](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/exhibitions\/fermeture-temporaire-pour-travaux)\n\n05\\.05.2025 to 15\\.09.2027\n\n[Next Chronicle Betty Catroux, Feminine singular](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/betty-catroux-feminin-singulier)\n\n- [Venue Rental](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/rent-a-space)\n- [Contact](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/contact)\n- [Press](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/press)\n\n© Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, [Legal Notice and Website Terms of Use](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/terms-conditions)\n\nWe use cookies to improve your experience on our website. By continuing to browse this website, you consent to their use. For more information, [click here](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/terms-conditions).","attrs_readable_markdown":"Yves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n### Yves Saint Laurent was always very close to women. Models, actresses, authors, artists, friends and collaborators―they were all essential to his inspiration and his work.\nAs the couturier said in 1997: *“Women and I love each other. My collections are love stories.”*\n\nChapter 1\n\n## The family circle\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/FAMILLE-DP1947-001FA.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding.\n\nIn Algeria, where he was born, Yves Saint Laurent was raised in a feminine environment, surrounded by his mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, his maternal grandmother, his great aunt and his two sisters.\n\nAn avid reader of fashion magazines, such as *Vogue*, *L'Illustration* and *Le* *Jardin des Modes*, he was fascinated by his mother, who “spent most of her time dressing,” and by the ensembles she would wear from one evening to the next.\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/36274\/YSL-et-sa-M%C3%A9re-mariage-de-Loulou-De-La-Falaise-le-11-Juin-1977.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n> Yves has always been interested in fashion. At three, he would cry if he didn't like my dress. \\[...\\] He did the sets for the Yacht Club and for receptions, as well as the costumes for the dance school.\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès., © François Pagès \/ Paris Match \/ Scoop](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/PM-0020112_INC_013116.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès.\n\nGrowing up in an environment that inspired him, Yves Saint Laurent’s early creative streak first became apparent in the paper dolls that he would dress up to the delight of his first audience, his two sisters Michèle and Brigitte. Born in 1942 and 1945, they were close to their elder brother, with whom they maintained a very tight bond. To further entertain them, Yves would invent adventure stories that took place in an imaginary world into which they would happily enter.\n\n> Every time I design a collection, I rediscover my childhood, I commune with it.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\nChapter 2\n\n## The idolized couturiers\n\n![Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36272\/MAR.HC1990E042_0076.jpg)\n\nSuit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990.\n\nIn 1968, seven years after the launching of his own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent was referred to by Gabrielle Chanel as her heir apparent, “because someday someone will have to continue what I’ve done.” The legendary couturier, who revolutionized the feminine wardrobe by freeing it from the corset and by offering the comfort of trousers, was gradually withdrawing from the fashion world, which had been overtaken by the events of May ’68 and the winds of modernity inspired by the youth movement and street fashion, something which she had trouble understanding.\n\nYves Saint Laurent, on the other hand, was inspired by precisely this revolutionary atmosphere that led him to create the wardrobe of the modern woman. In the spirit of what Gabrielle Chanel had accomplished at the beginning of the 20th century, he sought to free women from the clothing that hindered them. While offering them a modern sense of comfort and elegance, he would design a wardrobe that would place women on a par with men.\n\n> Chanel gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent empowered them.\n> \n> Pierre Bergé\n\n\"Dim Dam Dom : Yves Saint Laurent répond à Mademoiselle Chanel\", Remy Grumbach, March 10, 1968, collection RTF \/ ORTF © INA\n\nYves Saint Laurent also greatly admired the work of the renowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, who had been very close to the Surrealist group during the years between the two World Wars. Her oeuvre, nurtured by her friendship and collaborative work with artists and writers such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, clearly stood apart from the neoclassical orientation of fashion at the time.\n\n![Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36365\/0121YSL_Couture_F-W_2000-01_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\nEvening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000.\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli shared a passion for the ornamental embellishment of clothing and for daring colors such as the “shocking pink” so associated with the latter. Saint Laurent would pay tribute to her work in several of his designs, such as in his “broken mirror” jacket, a motif that Schiaparelli had used in 1935 for an embroidered jacket.\n\nChapter 3\n\n## The fashion models of the early years\n\n![Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/NUM_HC1962E097PH01.0165.jpg)\n\nEvening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962.\n\n[In 1955, when he began working at Christian Dior](https:\/\/museeyslparis.com\/en\/stories\/les-annees-dior-1-1) at the age of 18, Yves Saint Laurent met Victoire Doutreleau, the couture house's star model.\n\nShe quickly became Yves Saint Laurent’s favorite model, despite not having the measurements usually associated with runway models―she was smaller and less slender. And yet it was her way of wearing and embodying the garment that made such an impression on the young couturier. It must have been then that he realized the importance of designing directly on a fashion model, who not only wears the garment but moves with it and brings it to life.\n\nVictoire followed Yves Saint Laurent when he founded his own fashion house in 1961.\n\n> From one collection to another, the same image presents itself to me: that of Victoire, the sublime model and marvelous muse.”\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/NUM_DEJAP1963PH035.01.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963.\n\nFollowing in the footsteps of Victoire, another model caught the designer’s attention. Red-haired, skinny and with a slightly androgynous face, Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain was 19 when she introduced herself to Yves Saint Laurent. Her carefree attitude and way of presenting herself made her seem, in the couturier’s eyes, the embodiment of modernity and energy of the street that the couturier was drawn to.\n\nDanielle Luquet de Saint Germain played the role of muse for many of the couturier’s iconic garments: It was with her in mind that he created his first tuxedo-inspired *smokings* and his first safari jacket, as well as the infamous transparent black blouse that caused a scandal after Danielle paraded it topless down the runway.\n\nChapter 4\n\n## The close friends\n\nYves Saint Laurent met one of his closest friends, Betty Catroux, in a nightclub in 1967. They immediately become inseparable. Betty Catroux became his double, his twin, his accomplice. Together, they cultivated a “taste for everything seedy” and for all that Parisian nightlife had to offer.\n\n> Yves fell head over heels in love, a physical love. Although I was androgynous and asexual―he was certainly attracted to that―our rapport was not only physical; we also resembled each other morally, mentally, which was pretty incredible ... and his astute mind realized that I could be his soul mate.\n> \n> Betty Catroux\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36359\/LOULOU-0008YSL_1980_RTW_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\nAlong with Betty Catroux, Louise de La Falaise was one of Yves Saint Laurent’s closest friends. Born in England in 1948, she was the daughter of a French aristocrat and an Anglo-Irish woman. When they met in 1968, Yves Saint Laurent was immediately charmed by this radiant young woman. At the time, she would dress in flea market finds and create for herself a look that was as elegant as it was original.\n\nYves Saint Laurent went everywhere with Betty and Loulou: They would be seen together at runway shows, parties, trips overseas―they were an inseparable trio.\n\n![Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/36275\/0006YSL_Betty-et-Loulou_1979_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\nLoulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\nChapter 5\n\n## The colleagues\n\n![Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36277\/YSL-et-Loulou-1975.jpg)\n\nLoulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\nAs well as being a close friend, Loulou de la Falaise worked alongside Yves Saint Laurent at the couture house. She entered the couturier’s private workspace―the Studio as it was called―in 1972, where she remained beside the couturier for thirty years. She was quickly put in charge of accessories, which she preferred to be oversized and colorful, and was also responsible for the knitwear line.\n\n![Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36353\/DPX-203-2AC.jpg)\n\nClara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine.\n\nPress officer for the SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche* ready-to-wear line from 1968, Clara Saint took an active part in the life of the fashion house. She was a close friend of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and introduced them to Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso.\n\nPassionate about cinema, Clara participated in the production of several advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent fragrances, as the famous *Opium*, launched by the house in 1977.\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/Yves-Saint-Laurent-Anne-Marie-Mu%C3%B1oz-et-Pierre-Berg%C3%A9-dans-le-studio-5-avenue-Marceau-1977.-Photographie-de-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\nAnother permanent presence in Yves Saint Laurent’s Studio was Anne-Marie Muñoz-Yagüe. She previously had worked at Christian Dior, arriving there in February 1951, where she discovered the ins and outs of haute couture. It was there that she met Yves Saint Laurent in 1955.\n\nTheir paths briefly parted when Yves Saint Laurent left Dior. Anne-Marie Muñoz went on to work at Guy Laroche for a year, before joining the House of Yves Saint Laurent in 1963 as director of the Studio. She oversaw the entire creative process for more than 150 haute couture and ready-to-wear collections at the couture house until its closure in 2002.\n\n![Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966., © Pierre Lelièvre \/ Gamma Rapho](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/GRK5952802.jpg)\n\nMireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966.\n\n*“*The couture house is like an anthill bursting with energy, in which nearly two hundred people work, mostly women. A deep complicity existed between Saint Laurent and everyone working there, as reflected by what Madame Catherine, a former workshop director had to say: “He does not need to speak. I understand before he speaks.”\n\nUnder the leadership of the workshop directors, Yves Saint Laurent’s seamstresses earned his deep trust to realize his most extraordinary creations, as he made clear in an interview:\n\n*“Beside me \\[...\\] there are also the seamstresses, those who work by hand and who are the holders and last custodians of the secrets of haute couture \\[...\\]. Apart from them \\[...\\] there are the women who work at the machines, day and night. I sometimes make them destroy everything they’ve done. I would never offend them by letting them work on something without believing in it myself.”*\n\nExtract from the film \"Yves Saint Laurent, 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris\", David Teboul, 2002 © David Teboul \/ Swan Productions\n\nEnglish subtitles are available through the settings menu in the player\n\nChapter 6\n\n## The Yves Saint Laurent spirit\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/DENEUVE-NUM_ANNIV1982PH579.01.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982.\n\nAmong the women close to Yves Saint Laurent, there were those who embodied his creative spirit, obviously through the clothes they wore, but also in their attitude.\n\nCatherine Deneuve was twenty-two when she first met Yves Saint Laurent. When she learned that she would be presented to the Queen of England, the young woman chose Yves Saint Laurent to dress her. In 1966, the actress became the godmother of sorts of the first SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche* ready-to-wear boutique, an embodiment of the youth and modernity that Yves Saint Laurent sought in his revolutionary clothing line.\n\nA faithful friend to the end, Catherine Deneuve attended all the important anniversary celebrations of the couture house, up until its very last runway show, held at the Pompidou Center on January 22, 2002, where she closed the evening by singing with Laetitia Casta, “Ma plus belle histoire d’amour” (My Most Beautiful Love story) by Barbara.\n\n![Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971., © AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/XRA-1657018113.jpg)\n\nPaloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971.\n\nMeeting Pablo Picasso's youngest daughter, Paloma, was an “aesthetic jolt” for Yves Saint Laurent. She embodied the new face of an anti-establishment freedom that the designer was forever pursuing in his work.\n\nAlmost immediately, Paloma gave him the impetus to become more audacious, to “kick the anthill” as it were. It was her “flea market” look, at once elegant, daring and innovative―composed of turbans, fur boleros and dresses from the thirties and forties―that would inspire Yves Saint Laurent when designing his Summer 1971 collection, which came to be known as “La collection du scandale” (The Scandal Collection).\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/NUM_ANNIV1982PH351.01.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982.\n\nAs mentioned above, Betty Catroux was not only Yves Saint Laurent’s close friend, but also the embodiment of the Saint Laurent style. Even before they met, she already had an affinity for men's clothes, in which she felt the most herself. Betty Catroux played an essential role in the work of Yves Saint Laurent, who for several years had defined his own style by drawing on the codes of the masculine wardrobe. He kept the cut, comfort and practicality of men’s clothing while adjusting them to a feminine silhouette, combining simplicity and elegance.\n\n![Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/c-Droits-re%E2%95%A0%C3%BCserve%E2%95%A0%C3%BCs-Bettynum2_04.jpg)\n\nBetty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s.\n\nChapter 7\n\n## The fashion models\n\n![Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989., © Yves Saint Laurent \/ Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/10.-D%C3%A9fil%C3%A9-HC-PE-1989-%C2%A9-photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\nCape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989.\n\nWhen designing a couture garment, the presence of a model is essential.\n\nUnlike Gabrielle Chanel who worked on inanimate mannequins, Yves Saint Laurent could not design without a live fashion model beside him, as he felt that they were integral to giving life to the garment. Very often, it was with particular fashion models in mind that Yves Saint Laurent designed his collections.\n\nYves Saint Laurent was the first couturier to include black models in a runway show. Several, such as Katoucha Niane, Mounia Orosemane and Amalia Vairelli, would go on to become his favorite fashion models. He appreciated how the models’ skin tones complemented the colors he used in his fabrics.\n\nOne of the models he frequently used, Amalia Vairelli, worked both as an in-house model and in runway shows, where she was often presented with “The Heart,” a sumptuous piece of jewelry, considered a sort of fetish by the couturier, which would be worn by his favorite model.\n\n![Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/36280\/0002YSL_1984_Studio_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg)\n\nModels Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau.\n\n> When I see a fashion model, I know what I'm going to design for her. It's like love at first sight. I fall in love.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36361\/RTW-F-W-1996-97-1.jpg)\n\nClaudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show.\n\nThe Heart was also often worn by Laetitia Casta, who met Yves Saint Laurent in 1996. Despite not having the slender silhouette typical of models employed by the couture house, Laetitia Casta very quickly became one of the couturier’s favorite models, the one he chose to wear, on multiple occasions, the wedding dress that closed every runway show. Yves Saint Laurent nicknamed her his \"bird of paradise,\" and designed a dress for his Spring-Summer 2000 collection with her in mind, fashioned entirely with feathers from this exotic bird.\n\nExtract from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection. © Yves Saint Laurent © Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent \/ Droits Réservés\n\nChapter 8\n\n## The clients\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/DP1975-003PR.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974.\n\nBeginning with the very first collection presented by the couture house, a number of celebrities attended the young couturier's runway shows and became his clients. Seated in the front rows, they included some of the most prominent members of society at the time, such as Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and the Countess de Ribes, but also international celebrities such as the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor and Lauren Bacall. Later, several wives of leading French politicians would also choose to dress in Yves Saint Laurent, including Claude Pompidou, Danielle Mitterrand, Monique Lang and Bernadette Chirac.\n\nAmong the rich and famous that gravitated to Yves Saint Laurent, the American Nan Kempner would become one of the couture house's most loyal clients. She met Yves Saint Laurent at Dior in 1958. The elegance that characterized her style earned her praise from Diana Vreeland, the renowned American fashion editor: “There is no such thing as a chic American woman. The only exception is Nan Kempner.”\n\nOver the course of her life, Nan Kempner assembled a wardrobe that included a thousand dresses, three hundred and seventy-six bearing the label of her favorite designer. She said of Yves Saint Laurent: “I don't believe there is a single woman in the world who has not been influenced by him.”\n\n> American women provided me with such inspiration. Nan Kempner has always represented in my eyes a modern, free, independent and elegant woman. She is probably the one who wore my clothes the best, and with whom I had the longest and greatest bond.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979., © Guy Marineau](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/36223\/c-Guy-Marineau-YSL-C.Aillaud-1979-1.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979.\n\nCharlotte Aillaud, an icon of the vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Prés social scene and sister of Juliette Gréco, met Yves Saint Laurent in 1964 through Françoise Sagan. She would become one of his most loyal clients, as shown by her letters to the couturier kept by the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris: “My very dear Yves, just to tell you how moved I was the other evening watching these marvels from your wonderful universe paraded before me. Watching this magical farandole, I was flooded with memories, and Gilberte's daughter at the ball from *In Search of Lost Time* came to mind: ‘I found her beautiful, she looked like my youth.’ I embrace you as I love you: deeply.”\n\nChapter 9\n\n## The artists\n\nA number of women artists also played an important role in the work of the couturier. They allowed him to pursue his interest in the arts and the world of entertainment.\n\nYves Saint Laurent maintained a special bond with Claude Lalanne, the only artist with whom he collaborated with on a collection. The couturier asked her to make a set of “imprint” accessories for his Fall-Winter 1969 collection. Other jewels designed by her would follow, as well as helmets and headdresses inspired by plant motifs dear to Claude Lalanne. Their collaboration lasted several years until 1983.\n\nWhile working at Dior in 1956, Yves Saint Laurent met Roland Petit’s partner, the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. They bonded immediately and quickly became close friends.\n\nZizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the \"Cyrano de Bergerac\" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959.\n\nYves Saint Laurent created extravagant feather costumes for her, fulfilling a desire to design for the stage that had been with him since adolescence: “In a music hall, everything is there. One only needs three things to conjure up an entire world. With a bundle of black feathers make a big hat. Then perch it on a tall, naked black girl, and when she arrives on stage, let it become nothing less than a *coup de théâtre* \\[...\\] And the music hall, even more so than the theater, is life turned upside down. Poor materials can be made sumptuous and vice versa.\n\n[![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/2012-01-0497320.jpg)](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/2012-01-0497320.jpg)\n\nSylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the \"Johnny et Sylvie\" tour, 1973.\n\nYves Saint Laurent also designed stage outfits for the singer Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday’s companion. He made several outfits for her, including a golden jumpsuit for her performance at the Olympia Theater in 1972. It was not only a very sensual garment, but also comfortable to wear, so much so that the singer continued to wear it on television and on tour after Yves Saint Laurent offered it to her: “In general, on stage, it is important to avoid relaxed clothing in favor of more structured creations. A designer must adapt his work knowing this. The most beautiful haute couture dress will not necessarily serve as a good stage costume. Saint Laurent was well aware of this.”\n\nChapter 10\n\n## The women authors\n\n![Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973., © Christian Simonpiétri \/ Sygma Premium \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/Corbis-42-18674092.jpg)\n\nCatherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973.\n\nYves Saint Laurent was close to several women of letters throughout his life.\n\nAs a young man, he met Françoise Sagan. It was she who, in 1967, urged him to publish, through the Tchou publishing house, his album of the adventures of *La vilaine Lulu*, which Yves Saint Laurent began drawing ten years earlier while still working at Dior.\n\nFor the most part, they would end up meeting at social events to which they both had been invited. They would speak little to each other but were “united” by their similar lives, which they felt were defined by “terrifying burdens and responsibilities, incompatible with our idea of what life should be and by our very nature.” In 1980, in an article she published on Yves Saint Laurent, Sagan said, “I knew \\[...\\] that he was a shy, secretive, talented and headstrong person. I would go on to learn that he was also lucid, passionate, uncompromising and generous.”\n\n![Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/2012_01_0882_1.jpg)\n\nCostume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite.\n\nIn 1965, Yves Saint Laurent, who had done stage designs for the Renaud-Barrault theatrical company, designed the costumes for a play by Marguerite Duras, *Entire Days in the Trees*. He admired this woman of letters of whom he said, “She is undoubtedly the greatest French writer of our time. Her universe, her world view and lucidity speak to me. Rarely has one written about women with such emotion and sensuality.”\n\nThe admiration is mutual. Marguerite Duras said of him, “I have never ceased to see him as a writer. And however removed from language his work may seem, I have never seen it as distinct from writing. He sees everyone as if the person before him were an entire world, and that's when he takes control of you. \\[...\\] He sees things you don't know about yourself.”\n\nDuras also wrote about the launch of the SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche* ready-to-wear line in 1966, which for her solved the problem of elitism posed by haute couture.\n\n![Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982., © Droits réservés](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio3x2_fit_1\/NUM_REBAR1982PH057.01.jpg)\n\nPierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982.\n\nL’admiration est réciproque puisque Marguerite Duras dit de lui : « Je n’ai jamais cessé de le voir comme un écrivain. Et si loin des mots que puisse paraître son travail, je ne l’ai jamais séparé de l’écriture. Il voit chacun comme étant le monde entier et c’est dans cette situation-là qu’il se l’approprie. (...) Il voit de vous ce que vous ne savez pas que vous avez. », Marguerite Duras.\n\nDuras commente également le lancement de la ligne de prêt-à-porter SAINT LAURENT *rive gauche*, en 1966, qui pour elle résout le problème de l’élitisme que posait la haute couture.\n\n![Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966., © AGIP \/ Bridgeman Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_ratio1x1_fit_1\/00899.jpg)\n\nYves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966.\n\nAs the ultimate tribute to the emancipation of women and to their equality with men, Yves Saint Laurent designed the costume worn by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman to be admitted to the Académie Française. She was elected a member of the Academy on March 6, 1980, and entered the building on January 22, 1981, wearing a velvet houppelande tunic specially designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the occasion.\n\n“*Madam, it is a great joy to welcome you to this old and illustrious house where you find yourself, certainly not the first to enter it, but the first of your sex to do so \\[…\\] a peaceful yet vibrantly revolutionary moment, which you manifest, on your own, as one of the most significant events that fill our long and glorious history. I will not shy away from saying, Madam, that it is not because you are a woman that you are here today: it is because you are a great writer.” ―* Jean d´Ormesson on the occasion of Marguerite Yourcenar's admission to the Académie Française, 1980.\n\nThe costume Yves Saint Laurent designed for Marguerite Yourcenar contributed to her “stunning entrance” at this historic event, in the words of the literary and theatrical critic Matthieu Galey.\n\n[![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey \/ Sygma \/ via Getty Images](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_slider_1\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg)](https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/musee-ysl-paris\/images\/_max_res\/GettyImages-627498524.jpg)\n\n> \\[...\\] My dream is to give women the basics of a classic wardrobe which, escaping the fashion of the moment, gives them greater self-confidence. Through these clothes, I hope to make them happier.\n> \n> Yves Saint Laurent","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	Yves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Yves Saint Laurent was always very close to women. Models, actresses, authors, artists, friends and collaborators―they were all essential to his inspiration and his work. As the couturier said in 1997: “Women and I love each other. My collections are love stories.” Chapter 1 The family circle Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding. In Algeria, where he was born, Yves Saint Laurent was raised in a feminine environment, surrounded by his mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, his maternal grandmother, his great aunt and his two sisters. An avid reader of fashion magazines, such as Vogue , L'Illustration and Le Jardin des Modes , he was fascinated by his mother, who “spent most of her time dressing,” and by the ensembles she would wear from one evening to the next. Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Yves has always been interested in fashion. At three, he would cry if he didn't like my dress. [...] He did the sets for the Yacht Club and for receptions, as well as the costumes for the dance school. Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès. Growing up in an environment that inspired him, Yves Saint Laurent’s early creative streak first became apparent in the paper dolls that he would dress up to the delight of his first audience, his two sisters Michèle and Brigitte. Born in 1942 and 1945, they were close to their elder brother, with whom they maintained a very tight bond. To further entertain them, Yves would invent adventure stories that took place in an imaginary world into which they would happily enter. Every time I design a collection, I rediscover my childhood, I commune with it. Yves Saint Laurent Chapter 2 The idolized couturiers Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990. In 1968, seven years after the launching of his own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent was referred to by Gabrielle Chanel as her heir apparent, “because someday someone will have to continue what I’ve done.” The legendary couturier, who revolutionized the feminine wardrobe by freeing it from the corset and by offering the comfort of trousers, was gradually withdrawing from the fashion world, which had been overtaken by the events of May ’68 and the winds of modernity inspired by the youth movement and street fashion, something which she had trouble understanding. Yves Saint Laurent, on the other hand, was inspired by precisely this revolutionary atmosphere that led him to create the wardrobe of the modern woman. In the spirit of what Gabrielle Chanel had accomplished at the beginning of the 20 th century, he sought to free women from the clothing that hindered them. While offering them a modern sense of comfort and elegance, he would design a wardrobe that would place women on a par with men. Chanel gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent empowered them. Pierre Bergé "Dim Dam Dom : Yves Saint Laurent répond à Mademoiselle Chanel", Remy Grumbach, March 10, 1968, collection RTF / ORTF © INA Yves Saint Laurent also greatly admired the work of the renowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, who had been very close to the Surrealist group during the years between the two World Wars. Her oeuvre, nurtured by her friendship and collaborative work with artists and writers such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, clearly stood apart from the neoclassical orientation of fashion at the time. Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000. Yves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli shared a passion for the ornamental embellishment of clothing and for daring colors such as the “shocking pink” so associated with the latter. Saint Laurent would pay tribute to her work in several of his designs, such as in his “broken mirror” jacket, a motif that Schiaparelli had used in 1935 for an embroidered jacket. Chapter 3 The fashion models of the early years Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962. In 1955, when he began working at Christian Dior at the age of 18, Yves Saint Laurent met Victoire Doutreleau, the couture house's star model. She quickly became Yves Saint Laurent’s favorite model, despite not having the measurements usually associated with runway models―she was smaller and less slender. And yet it was her way of wearing and embodying the garment that made such an impression on the young couturier. It must have been then that he realized the importance of designing directly on a fashion model, who not only wears the garment but moves with it and brings it to life. Victoire followed Yves Saint Laurent when he founded his own fashion house in 1961. From one collection to another, the same image presents itself to me: that of Victoire, the sublime model and marvelous muse.” Yves Saint Laurent Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963. Following in the footsteps of Victoire, another model caught the designer’s attention. Red-haired, skinny and with a slightly androgynous face, Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain was 19 when she introduced herself to Yves Saint Laurent. Her carefree attitude and way of presenting herself made her seem, in the couturier’s eyes, the embodiment of modernity and energy of the street that the couturier was drawn to. Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain played the role of muse for many of the couturier’s iconic garments: It was with her in mind that he created his first tuxedo-inspired smokings and his first safari jacket, as well as the infamous transparent black blouse that caused a scandal after Danielle paraded it topless down the runway. Chapter 4 The close friends Yves Saint Laurent met one of his closest friends, Betty Catroux, in a nightclub in 1967. They immediately become inseparable. Betty Catroux became his double, his twin, his accomplice. Together, they cultivated a “taste for everything seedy” and for all that Parisian nightlife had to offer. Yves fell head over heels in love, a physical love. Although I was androgynous and asexual―he was certainly attracted to that―our rapport was not only physical; we also resembled each other morally, mentally, which was pretty incredible ... and his astute mind realized that I could be his soul mate. Betty Catroux Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Along with Betty Catroux, Louise de La Falaise was one of Yves Saint Laurent’s closest friends. Born in England in 1948, she was the daughter of a French aristocrat and an Anglo-Irish woman. When they met in 1968, Yves Saint Laurent was immediately charmed by this radiant young woman. At the time, she would dress in flea market finds and create for herself a look that was as elegant as it was original. Yves Saint Laurent went everywhere with Betty and Loulou: They would be seen together at runway shows, parties, trips overseas―they were an inseparable trio. Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Chapter 5 The colleagues Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau. As well as being a close friend, Loulou de la Falaise worked alongside Yves Saint Laurent at the couture house. She entered the couturier’s private workspace―the Studio as it was called―in 1972, where she remained beside the couturier for thirty years. She was quickly put in charge of accessories, which she preferred to be oversized and colorful, and was also responsible for the knitwear line. Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine. Press officer for the SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear line from 1968, Clara Saint took an active part in the life of the fashion house. She was a close friend of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and introduced them to Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso. Passionate about cinema, Clara participated in the production of several advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent fragrances, as the famous Opium , launched by the house in 1977. Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Another permanent presence in Yves Saint Laurent’s Studio was Anne-Marie Muñoz-Yagüe. She previously had worked at Christian Dior, arriving there in February 1951, where she discovered the ins and outs of haute couture. It was there that she met Yves Saint Laurent in 1955. Their paths briefly parted when Yves Saint Laurent left Dior. Anne-Marie Muñoz went on to work at Guy Laroche for a year, before joining the House of Yves Saint Laurent in 1963 as director of the Studio. She oversaw the entire creative process for more than 150 haute couture and ready-to-wear collections at the couture house until its closure in 2002. Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966. “ The couture house is like an anthill bursting with energy, in which nearly two hundred people work, mostly women. A deep complicity existed between Saint Laurent and everyone working there, as reflected by what Madame Catherine, a former workshop director had to say: “He does not need to speak. I understand before he speaks.” Under the leadership of the workshop directors, Yves Saint Laurent’s seamstresses earned his deep trust to realize his most extraordinary creations, as he made clear in an interview: “Beside me [...] there are also the seamstresses, those who work by hand and who are the holders and last custodians of the secrets of haute couture [...]. Apart from them [...] there are the women who work at the machines, day and night. I sometimes make them destroy everything they’ve done. I would never offend them by letting them work on something without believing in it myself.” Extract from the film "Yves Saint Laurent, 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris", David Teboul, 2002 © David Teboul / Swan Productions English subtitles are available through the settings menu in the player Chapter 6 The Yves Saint Laurent spirit Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982. Among the women close to Yves Saint Laurent, there were those who embodied his creative spirit, obviously through the clothes they wore, but also in their attitude. Catherine Deneuve was twenty-two when she first met Yves Saint Laurent. When she learned that she would be presented to the Queen of England, the young woman chose Yves Saint Laurent to dress her. In 1966, the actress became the godmother of sorts of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear boutique, an embodiment of the youth and modernity that Yves Saint Laurent sought in his revolutionary clothing line. A faithful friend to the end, Catherine Deneuve attended all the important anniversary celebrations of the couture house, up until its very last runway show, held at the Pompidou Center on January 22, 2002, where she closed the evening by singing with Laetitia Casta, “Ma plus belle histoire d’amour” (My Most Beautiful Love story) by Barbara. Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971. Meeting Pablo Picasso's youngest daughter, Paloma, was an “aesthetic jolt” for Yves Saint Laurent. She embodied the new face of an anti-establishment freedom that the designer was forever pursuing in his work. Almost immediately, Paloma gave him the impetus to become more audacious, to “kick the anthill” as it were. It was her “flea market” look, at once elegant, daring and innovative―composed of turbans, fur boleros and dresses from the thirties and forties―that would inspire Yves Saint Laurent when designing his Summer 1971 collection, which came to be known as “La collection du scandale” (The Scandal Collection). Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982. As mentioned above, Betty Catroux was not only Yves Saint Laurent’s close friend, but also the embodiment of the Saint Laurent style. Even before they met, she already had an affinity for men's clothes, in which she felt the most herself. Betty Catroux played an essential role in the work of Yves Saint Laurent, who for several years had defined his own style by drawing on the codes of the masculine wardrobe. He kept the cut, comfort and practicality of men’s clothing while adjusting them to a feminine silhouette, combining simplicity and elegance. Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s. Chapter 7 The fashion models Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989. When designing a couture garment, the presence of a model is essential. Unlike Gabrielle Chanel who worked on inanimate mannequins, Yves Saint Laurent could not design without a live fashion model beside him, as he felt that they were integral to giving life to the garment. Very often, it was with particular fashion models in mind that Yves Saint Laurent designed his collections. Yves Saint Laurent was the first couturier to include black models in a runway show. Several, such as Katoucha Niane, Mounia Orosemane and Amalia Vairelli, would go on to become his favorite fashion models. He appreciated how the models’ skin tones complemented the colors he used in his fabrics. One of the models he frequently used, Amalia Vairelli, worked both as an in-house model and in runway shows, where she was often presented with “The Heart,” a sumptuous piece of jewelry, considered a sort of fetish by the couturier, which would be worn by his favorite model. Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau. When I see a fashion model, I know what I'm going to design for her. It's like love at first sight. I fall in love. Yves Saint Laurent Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show. The Heart was also often worn by Laetitia Casta, who met Yves Saint Laurent in 1996. Despite not having the slender silhouette typical of models employed by the couture house, Laetitia Casta very quickly became one of the couturier’s favorite models, the one he chose to wear, on multiple occasions, the wedding dress that closed every runway show. Yves Saint Laurent nicknamed her his "bird of paradise," and designed a dress for his Spring-Summer 2000 collection with her in mind, fashioned entirely with feathers from this exotic bird. Extract from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection. © Yves Saint Laurent © Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent / Droits Réservés Chapter 8 The clients Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974. Beginning with the very first collection presented by the couture house, a number of celebrities attended the young couturier's runway shows and became his clients. Seated in the front rows, they included some of the most prominent members of society at the time, such as Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and the Countess de Ribes, but also international celebrities such as the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor and Lauren Bacall. Later, several wives of leading French politicians would also choose to dress in Yves Saint Laurent, including Claude Pompidou, Danielle Mitterrand, Monique Lang and Bernadette Chirac. Among the rich and famous that gravitated to Yves Saint Laurent, the American Nan Kempner would become one of the couture house's most loyal clients. She met Yves Saint Laurent at Dior in 1958. The elegance that characterized her style earned her praise from Diana Vreeland, the renowned American fashion editor: “There is no such thing as a chic American woman. The only exception is Nan Kempner.” Over the course of her life, Nan Kempner assembled a wardrobe that included a thousand dresses, three hundred and seventy-six bearing the label of her favorite designer. She said of Yves Saint Laurent: “I don't believe there is a single woman in the world who has not been influenced by him.” American women provided me with such inspiration. Nan Kempner has always represented in my eyes a modern, free, independent and elegant woman. She is probably the one who wore my clothes the best, and with whom I had the longest and greatest bond. Yves Saint Laurent Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979. Charlotte Aillaud, an icon of the vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Prés social scene and sister of Juliette Gréco, met Yves Saint Laurent in 1964 through Françoise Sagan. She would become one of his most loyal clients, as shown by her letters to the couturier kept by the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris: “My very dear Yves, just to tell you how moved I was the other evening watching these marvels from your wonderful universe paraded before me. Watching this magical farandole, I was flooded with memories, and Gilberte's daughter at the ball from In Search of Lost Time came to mind: ‘I found her beautiful, she looked like my youth.’ I embrace you as I love you: deeply.” Chapter 9 The artists A number of women artists also played an important role in the work of the couturier. They allowed him to pursue his interest in the arts and the world of entertainment. Yves Saint Laurent maintained a special bond with Claude Lalanne, the only artist with whom he collaborated with on a collection. The couturier asked her to make a set of “imprint” accessories for his Fall-Winter 1969 collection. Other jewels designed by her would follow, as well as helmets and headdresses inspired by plant motifs dear to Claude Lalanne. Their collaboration lasted several years until 1983. While working at Dior in 1956, Yves Saint Laurent met Roland Petit’s partner, the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. They bonded immediately and quickly became close friends. Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the "Cyrano de Bergerac" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959. Yves Saint Laurent created extravagant feather costumes for her, fulfilling a desire to design for the stage that had been with him since adolescence: “In a music hall, everything is there. One only needs three things to conjure up an entire world. With a bundle of black feathers make a big hat. Then perch it on a tall, naked black girl, and when she arrives on stage, let it become nothing less than a coup de théâtre [...] And the music hall, even more so than the theater, is life turned upside down. Poor materials can be made sumptuous and vice versa. Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the "Johnny et Sylvie" tour, 1973. Yves Saint Laurent also designed stage outfits for the singer Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday’s companion. He made several outfits for her, including a golden jumpsuit for her performance at the Olympia Theater in 1972. It was not only a very sensual garment, but also comfortable to wear, so much so that the singer continued to wear it on television and on tour after Yves Saint Laurent offered it to her: “In general, on stage, it is important to avoid relaxed clothing in favor of more structured creations. A designer must adapt his work knowing this. The most beautiful haute couture dress will not necessarily serve as a good stage costume. Saint Laurent was well aware of this.” Chapter 10 The women authors Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973. Yves Saint Laurent was close to several women of letters throughout his life. As a young man, he met Françoise Sagan. It was she who, in 1967, urged him to publish, through the Tchou publishing house, his album of the adventures of La vilaine Lulu , which Yves Saint Laurent began drawing ten years earlier while still working at Dior. For the most part, they would end up meeting at social events to which they both had been invited. They would speak little to each other but were “united” by their similar lives, which they felt were defined by “terrifying burdens and responsibilities, incompatible with our idea of what life should be and by our very nature.” In 1980, in an article she published on Yves Saint Laurent, Sagan said, “I knew [...] that he was a shy, secretive, talented and headstrong person. I would go on to learn that he was also lucid, passionate, uncompromising and generous.” Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite. In 1965, Yves Saint Laurent, who had done stage designs for the Renaud-Barrault theatrical company, designed the costumes for a play by Marguerite Duras, Entire Days in the Trees . He admired this woman of letters of whom he said, “She is undoubtedly the greatest French writer of our time. Her universe, her world view and lucidity speak to me. Rarely has one written about women with such emotion and sensuality.” The admiration is mutual. Marguerite Duras said of him, “I have never ceased to see him as a writer. And however removed from language his work may seem, I have never seen it as distinct from writing. He sees everyone as if the person before him were an entire world, and that's when he takes control of you. [...] He sees things you don't know about yourself.” Duras also wrote about the launch of the SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear line in 1966, which for her solved the problem of elitism posed by haute couture. Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982. L’admiration est réciproque puisque Marguerite Duras dit de lui : « Je n’ai jamais cessé de le voir comme un écrivain. Et si loin des mots que puisse paraître son travail, je ne l’ai jamais séparé de l’écriture. Il voit chacun comme étant le monde entier et c’est dans cette situation-là qu’il se l’approprie. (...) Il voit de vous ce que vous ne savez pas que vous avez. », Marguerite Duras. Duras commente également le lancement de la ligne de prêt-à-porter SAINT LAURENT rive gauche , en 1966, qui pour elle résout le problème de l’élitisme que posait la haute couture. Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966. As the ultimate tribute to the emancipation of women and to their equality with men, Yves Saint Laurent designed the costume worn by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman to be admitted to the Académie Française. She was elected a member of the Academy on March 6, 1980, and entered the building on January 22, 1981, wearing a velvet houppelande tunic specially designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the occasion. “ Madam, it is a great joy to welcome you to this old and illustrious house where you find yourself, certainly not the first to enter it, but the first of your sex to do so […] a peaceful yet vibrantly revolutionary moment, which you manifest, on your own, as one of the most significant events that fill our long and glorious history. I will not shy away from saying, Madam, that it is not because you are a woman that you are here today: it is because you are a great writer.” ― Jean d´Ormesson on the occasion of Marguerite Yourcenar's admission to the Académie Française, 1980. The costume Yves Saint Laurent designed for Marguerite Yourcenar contributed to her “stunning entrance” at this historic event, in the words of the literary and theatrical critic Matthieu Galey. [...] My dream is to give women the basics of a classic wardrobe which, escaping the fashion of the moment, gives them greater self-confidence. Through these clothes, I hope to make them happier. Yves Saint Laurent
Markdown	![](https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=139280023339570&ev=PageView&noscript=1) [Accéder au contenu principal](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#main) [Chronicles](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories) The Saint Laurent women Introduction - [Introduction](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#introduction) - Chapter 1 [The family circle](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-family-circle) - Chapter 2 [The idolized couturiers](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-idolized-couturiers) - Chapter 3 [The fashion models of the early years](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-fashion-models-of-the-early-years) - Chapter 4 [The close friends](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-close-friends) - Chapter 5 [The colleagues](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-colleagues) - Chapter 6 [The Yves Saint Laurent spirit](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-yves-saint-laurent-spirit) - Chapter 7 [The fashion models](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-fashion-models) - Chapter 8 [The clients](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-clients) - Chapter 9 [The artists](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-artists) - Chapter 10 [The women authors](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#the-women-authors) ![]() Yves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau ![]() Yves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau # The Saint Laurent women ### Yves Saint Laurent was always very close to women. Models, actresses, authors, artists, friends and collaborators―they were all essential to his inspiration and his work. As the couturier said in 1997: “Women and I love each other. My collections are love stories.” Chapter 1 ## The family circle ![Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/FAMILLE-DP1947-001FA.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding., © Droits réservés]() Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding. © Droits réservés In Algeria, where he was born, Yves Saint Laurent was raised in a feminine environment, surrounded by his mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, his maternal grandmother, his great aunt and his two sisters. An avid reader of fashion magazines, such as Vogue, L'Illustration and Le Jardin des Modes, he was fascinated by his mother, who “spent most of her time dressing,” and by the ensembles she would wear from one evening to the next. ![Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/36274/YSL-et-sa-M%C3%A9re-mariage-de-Loulou-De-La-Falaise-le-11-Juin-1977.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]() Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau > Yves has always been interested in fashion. At three, he would cry if he didn't like my dress. \[...\] He did the sets for the Yacht Club and for receptions, as well as the costumes for the dance school. > > Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent ![Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès., © François Pagès / Paris Match / Scoop](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/PM-0020112_INC_013116.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès., © François Pagès / Paris Match / Scoop]() Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès. © François Pagès / Paris Match / Scoop Growing up in an environment that inspired him, Yves Saint Laurent’s early creative streak first became apparent in the paper dolls that he would dress up to the delight of his first audience, his two sisters Michèle and Brigitte. Born in 1942 and 1945, they were close to their elder brother, with whom they maintained a very tight bond. To further entertain them, Yves would invent adventure stories that took place in an imaginary world into which they would happily enter. > Every time I design a collection, I rediscover my childhood, I commune with it. > > Yves Saint Laurent Chapter 2 ## The idolized couturiers ![Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36272/MAR.HC1990E042_0076.jpg) ![Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau]() Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990. © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau In 1968, seven years after the launching of his own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent was referred to by Gabrielle Chanel as her heir apparent, “because someday someone will have to continue what I’ve done.” The legendary couturier, who revolutionized the feminine wardrobe by freeing it from the corset and by offering the comfort of trousers, was gradually withdrawing from the fashion world, which had been overtaken by the events of May ’68 and the winds of modernity inspired by the youth movement and street fashion, something which she had trouble understanding. Yves Saint Laurent, on the other hand, was inspired by precisely this revolutionary atmosphere that led him to create the wardrobe of the modern woman. In the spirit of what Gabrielle Chanel had accomplished at the beginning of the 20th century, he sought to free women from the clothing that hindered them. While offering them a modern sense of comfort and elegance, he would design a wardrobe that would place women on a par with men. > Chanel gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent empowered them. > > Pierre Bergé "Dim Dam Dom : Yves Saint Laurent répond à Mademoiselle Chanel", Remy Grumbach, March 10, 1968, collection RTF / ORTF © INA Yves Saint Laurent also greatly admired the work of the renowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, who had been very close to the Surrealist group during the years between the two World Wars. Her oeuvre, nurtured by her friendship and collaborative work with artists and writers such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, clearly stood apart from the neoclassical orientation of fashion at the time. ![Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36365/0121YSL_Couture_F-W_2000-01_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) ![Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau]() Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000. © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau Yves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli shared a passion for the ornamental embellishment of clothing and for daring colors such as the “shocking pink” so associated with the latter. Saint Laurent would pay tribute to her work in several of his designs, such as in his “broken mirror” jacket, a motif that Schiaparelli had used in 1935 for an embroidered jacket. [![Evening ensemble including the "Miroir brisé" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/NUM_HC1978H097PH02.01.jpg) ![Evening ensemble including the ]() Evening ensemble including the "Miroir brisé" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978. © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/NUM_HC1978H097PH02.01.jpg) [![Evening ensemble including the "Miroir brisé" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/NUM_HC1978H097PH03.01.jpg) ![Evening ensemble including the ]() Evening ensemble including the "Miroir brisé" embroidered jacket, worn by Mounia Orosemane for the Autumn-Winter 1978 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, July 1978. © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/NUM_HC1978H097PH03.01.jpg) Chapter 3 ## The fashion models of the early years ![Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/NUM_HC1962E097PH01.0165.jpg) ![Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962., © Droits réservés]() Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962. © Droits réservés [In 1955, when he began working at Christian Dior](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/les-annees-dior-1-1) at the age of 18, Yves Saint Laurent met Victoire Doutreleau, the couture house's star model. She quickly became Yves Saint Laurent’s favorite model, despite not having the measurements usually associated with runway models―she was smaller and less slender. And yet it was her way of wearing and embodying the garment that made such an impression on the young couturier. It must have been then that he realized the importance of designing directly on a fashion model, who not only wears the garment but moves with it and brings it to life. Victoire followed Yves Saint Laurent when he founded his own fashion house in 1961. > From one collection to another, the same image presents itself to me: that of Victoire, the sublime model and marvelous muse.” > > Yves Saint Laurent ![Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/NUM_DEJAP1963PH035.01.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963., © Droits réservés]() Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963. © Droits réservés Following in the footsteps of Victoire, another model caught the designer’s attention. Red-haired, skinny and with a slightly androgynous face, Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain was 19 when she introduced herself to Yves Saint Laurent. Her carefree attitude and way of presenting herself made her seem, in the couturier’s eyes, the embodiment of modernity and energy of the street that the couturier was drawn to. Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain played the role of muse for many of the couturier’s iconic garments: It was with her in mind that he created his first tuxedo-inspired smokings and his first safari jacket, as well as the infamous transparent black blouse that caused a scandal after Danielle paraded it topless down the runway. [![Tuxedo worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Spring-Summer 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/36253/Sans-titre-15.jpg) ![Tuxedo worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Spring-Summer 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]() Tuxedo worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Spring-Summer 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney). © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/36253/Sans-titre-15.jpg) [![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/36256/Sans-titre-18.jpg) ![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]() Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney). © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/36256/Sans-titre-18.jpg) [![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/36257/Sans-titre-16_211223_113636.jpg) ![Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney)., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]() Evening gown worn by Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain. Autumn-Winter 1968 haute couture collection. Photograph by Peter Caine (Sydney). © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/36257/Sans-titre-16_211223_113636.jpg) Chapter 4 ## The close friends Yves Saint Laurent met one of his closest friends, Betty Catroux, in a nightclub in 1967. They immediately become inseparable. Betty Catroux became his double, his twin, his accomplice. Together, they cultivated a “taste for everything seedy” and for all that Parisian nightlife had to offer. > Yves fell head over heels in love, a physical love. Although I was androgynous and asexual―he was certainly attracted to that―our rapport was not only physical; we also resembled each other morally, mentally, which was pretty incredible ... and his astute mind realized that I could be his soul mate. > > Betty Catroux ![Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36359/LOULOU-0008YSL_1980_RTW_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]() Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau Along with Betty Catroux, Louise de La Falaise was one of Yves Saint Laurent’s closest friends. Born in England in 1948, she was the daughter of a French aristocrat and an Anglo-Irish woman. When they met in 1968, Yves Saint Laurent was immediately charmed by this radiant young woman. At the time, she would dress in flea market finds and create for herself a look that was as elegant as it was original. Yves Saint Laurent went everywhere with Betty and Loulou: They would be seen together at runway shows, parties, trips overseas―they were an inseparable trio. ![Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/36275/0006YSL_Betty-et-Loulou_1979_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) ![Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]() Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau Chapter 5 ## The colleagues ![Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36277/YSL-et-Loulou-1975.jpg) ![Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]() Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau As well as being a close friend, Loulou de la Falaise worked alongside Yves Saint Laurent at the couture house. She entered the couturier’s private workspace―the Studio as it was called―in 1972, where she remained beside the couturier for thirty years. She was quickly put in charge of accessories, which she preferred to be oversized and colorful, and was also responsible for the knitwear line. ![Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36353/DPX-203-2AC.jpg) ![Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR]() Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine. © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR Press officer for the SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear line from 1968, Clara Saint took an active part in the life of the fashion house. She was a close friend of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and introduced them to Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso. Passionate about cinema, Clara participated in the production of several advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent fragrances, as the famous Opium, launched by the house in 1977. ![Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/Yves-Saint-Laurent-Anne-Marie-Mu%C3%B1oz-et-Pierre-Berg%C3%A9-dans-le-studio-5-avenue-Marceau-1977.-Photographie-de-Guy-Marineau.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]() Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau Another permanent presence in Yves Saint Laurent’s Studio was Anne-Marie Muñoz-Yagüe. She previously had worked at Christian Dior, arriving there in February 1951, where she discovered the ins and outs of haute couture. It was there that she met Yves Saint Laurent in 1955. Their paths briefly parted when Yves Saint Laurent left Dior. Anne-Marie Muñoz went on to work at Guy Laroche for a year, before joining the House of Yves Saint Laurent in 1963 as director of the Studio. She oversaw the entire creative process for more than 150 haute couture and ready-to-wear collections at the couture house until its closure in 2002. ![Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966., © Pierre Lelièvre / Gamma Rapho](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/GRK5952802.jpg) ![Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966., © Pierre Lelièvre / Gamma Rapho]() Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966. © Pierre Lelièvre / Gamma Rapho “The couture house is like an anthill bursting with energy, in which nearly two hundred people work, mostly women. A deep complicity existed between Saint Laurent and everyone working there, as reflected by what Madame Catherine, a former workshop director had to say: “He does not need to speak. I understand before he speaks.” Under the leadership of the workshop directors, Yves Saint Laurent’s seamstresses earned his deep trust to realize his most extraordinary creations, as he made clear in an interview: “Beside me \[...\] there are also the seamstresses, those who work by hand and who are the holders and last custodians of the secrets of haute couture \[...\]. Apart from them \[...\] there are the women who work at the machines, day and night. I sometimes make them destroy everything they’ve done. I would never offend them by letting them work on something without believing in it myself.” Extract from the film "Yves Saint Laurent, 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris", David Teboul, 2002 © David Teboul / Swan Productions English subtitles are available through the settings menu in the player Chapter 6 ## The Yves Saint Laurent spirit ![Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/DENEUVE-NUM_ANNIV1982PH579.01.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982., © Droits réservés]() Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982. © Droits réservés Among the women close to Yves Saint Laurent, there were those who embodied his creative spirit, obviously through the clothes they wore, but also in their attitude. Catherine Deneuve was twenty-two when she first met Yves Saint Laurent. When she learned that she would be presented to the Queen of England, the young woman chose Yves Saint Laurent to dress her. In 1966, the actress became the godmother of sorts of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear boutique, an embodiment of the youth and modernity that Yves Saint Laurent sought in his revolutionary clothing line. A faithful friend to the end, Catherine Deneuve attended all the important anniversary celebrations of the couture house, up until its very last runway show, held at the Pompidou Center on January 22, 2002, where she closed the evening by singing with Laetitia Casta, “Ma plus belle histoire d’amour” (My Most Beautiful Love story) by Barbara. ![Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971., © AGIP / Bridgeman Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/XRA-1657018113.jpg) ![Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971., © AGIP / Bridgeman Images]() Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971. © AGIP / Bridgeman Images Meeting Pablo Picasso's youngest daughter, Paloma, was an “aesthetic jolt” for Yves Saint Laurent. She embodied the new face of an anti-establishment freedom that the designer was forever pursuing in his work. Almost immediately, Paloma gave him the impetus to become more audacious, to “kick the anthill” as it were. It was her “flea market” look, at once elegant, daring and innovative―composed of turbans, fur boleros and dresses from the thirties and forties―that would inspire Yves Saint Laurent when designing his Summer 1971 collection, which came to be known as “La collection du scandale” (The Scandal Collection). ![Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/NUM_ANNIV1982PH351.01.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982., © Droits réservés]() Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982. © Droits réservés As mentioned above, Betty Catroux was not only Yves Saint Laurent’s close friend, but also the embodiment of the Saint Laurent style. Even before they met, she already had an affinity for men's clothes, in which she felt the most herself. Betty Catroux played an essential role in the work of Yves Saint Laurent, who for several years had defined his own style by drawing on the codes of the masculine wardrobe. He kept the cut, comfort and practicality of men’s clothing while adjusting them to a feminine silhouette, combining simplicity and elegance. ![Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/c-Droits-re%E2%95%A0%C3%BCserve%E2%95%A0%C3%BCs-Bettynum2_04.jpg) ![Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s., © Droits réservés]() Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s. © Droits réservés Chapter 7 ## The fashion models ![Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/10.-D%C3%A9fil%C3%A9-HC-PE-1989-%C2%A9-photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) ![Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau]() Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989. © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau When designing a couture garment, the presence of a model is essential. Unlike Gabrielle Chanel who worked on inanimate mannequins, Yves Saint Laurent could not design without a live fashion model beside him, as he felt that they were integral to giving life to the garment. Very often, it was with particular fashion models in mind that Yves Saint Laurent designed his collections. Yves Saint Laurent was the first couturier to include black models in a runway show. Several, such as Katoucha Niane, Mounia Orosemane and Amalia Vairelli, would go on to become his favorite fashion models. He appreciated how the models’ skin tones complemented the colors he used in his fabrics. One of the models he frequently used, Amalia Vairelli, worked both as an in-house model and in runway shows, where she was often presented with “The Heart,” a sumptuous piece of jewelry, considered a sort of fetish by the couturier, which would be worn by his favorite model. ![Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/36280/0002YSL_1984_Studio_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) ![Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau]() Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau. © Guy Marineau > When I see a fashion model, I know what I'm going to design for her. It's like love at first sight. I fall in love. > > Yves Saint Laurent ![Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36361/RTW-F-W-1996-97-1.jpg) ![Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show., © Guy Marineau]() Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show. © Guy Marineau The Heart was also often worn by Laetitia Casta, who met Yves Saint Laurent in 1996. Despite not having the slender silhouette typical of models employed by the couture house, Laetitia Casta very quickly became one of the couturier’s favorite models, the one he chose to wear, on multiple occasions, the wedding dress that closed every runway show. Yves Saint Laurent nicknamed her his "bird of paradise," and designed a dress for his Spring-Summer 2000 collection with her in mind, fashioned entirely with feathers from this exotic bird. [![Wedding gown worn by Laetitia Casta. Haute couture Spring-Summer 1998 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 1998. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/36264/Pola-LC-3.jpg) ![Wedding gown worn by Laetitia Casta. Haute couture Spring-Summer 1998 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 1998. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés]() Wedding gown worn by Laetitia Casta. Haute couture Spring-Summer 1998 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 1998. Personal Polaroid from the house. © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/36264/Pola-LC-3.jpg) [![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Autumn-Winter 1999 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, July 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/36263/Pola-LC-2.jpg) ![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Autumn-Winter 1999 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, July 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés]() Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Autumn-Winter 1999 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, July 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house. © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/36263/Pola-LC-2.jpg) [![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_gallery_1/36260/Pola-LC-1.jpg) ![Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house., © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés]() Laetitia Casta wearing the wedding gown from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection, 5, avenue Marceau, Paris, January 2000. Personal Polaroid from the house. © Yves Saint Laurent / Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/36260/Pola-LC-1.jpg) Extract from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection. © Yves Saint Laurent © Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent / Droits Réservés Chapter 8 ## The clients ![Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/DP1975-003PR.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974., © Droits réservés]() Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974. © Droits réservés Beginning with the very first collection presented by the couture house, a number of celebrities attended the young couturier's runway shows and became his clients. Seated in the front rows, they included some of the most prominent members of society at the time, such as Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and the Countess de Ribes, but also international celebrities such as the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor and Lauren Bacall. Later, several wives of leading French politicians would also choose to dress in Yves Saint Laurent, including Claude Pompidou, Danielle Mitterrand, Monique Lang and Bernadette Chirac. Among the rich and famous that gravitated to Yves Saint Laurent, the American Nan Kempner would become one of the couture house's most loyal clients. She met Yves Saint Laurent at Dior in 1958. The elegance that characterized her style earned her praise from Diana Vreeland, the renowned American fashion editor: “There is no such thing as a chic American woman. The only exception is Nan Kempner.” Over the course of her life, Nan Kempner assembled a wardrobe that included a thousand dresses, three hundred and seventy-six bearing the label of her favorite designer. She said of Yves Saint Laurent: “I don't believe there is a single woman in the world who has not been influenced by him.” > American women provided me with such inspiration. Nan Kempner has always represented in my eyes a modern, free, independent and elegant woman. She is probably the one who wore my clothes the best, and with whom I had the longest and greatest bond. > > Yves Saint Laurent ![Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36223/c-Guy-Marineau-YSL-C.Aillaud-1979-1.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979., © Guy Marineau]() Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979. © Guy Marineau Charlotte Aillaud, an icon of the vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Prés social scene and sister of Juliette Gréco, met Yves Saint Laurent in 1964 through Françoise Sagan. She would become one of his most loyal clients, as shown by her letters to the couturier kept by the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris: “My very dear Yves, just to tell you how moved I was the other evening watching these marvels from your wonderful universe paraded before me. Watching this magical farandole, I was flooded with memories, and Gilberte's daughter at the ball from In Search of Lost Time came to mind: ‘I found her beautiful, she looked like my youth.’ I embrace you as I love you: deeply.” Chapter 9 ## The artists A number of women artists also played an important role in the work of the couturier. They allowed him to pursue his interest in the arts and the world of entertainment. Yves Saint Laurent maintained a special bond with Claude Lalanne, the only artist with whom he collaborated with on a collection. The couturier asked her to make a set of “imprint” accessories for his Fall-Winter 1969 collection. Other jewels designed by her would follow, as well as helmets and headdresses inspired by plant motifs dear to Claude Lalanne. Their collaboration lasted several years until 1983. While working at Dior in 1956, Yves Saint Laurent met Roland Petit’s partner, the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. They bonded immediately and quickly became close friends. ![Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the "Cyrano de Bergerac" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959., © Maurice Jarnoux / Paris Match / Scoop](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36356/M1513234_INC_002.jpg) ![Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the ]() Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the "Cyrano de Bergerac" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959. © Maurice Jarnoux / Paris Match / Scoop Yves Saint Laurent created extravagant feather costumes for her, fulfilling a desire to design for the stage that had been with him since adolescence: “In a music hall, everything is there. One only needs three things to conjure up an entire world. With a bundle of black feathers make a big hat. Then perch it on a tall, naked black girl, and when she arrives on stage, let it become nothing less than a coup de théâtre \[...\] And the music hall, even more so than the theater, is life turned upside down. Poor materials can be made sumptuous and vice versa. Previous [![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the "Le Champagne rosé" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/1637-174204.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the ]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the "Le Champagne rosé" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/1637-174204.jpg) [![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/1531426.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/1531426.jpg) [![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/2012-01-0497320.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/2012-01-0497320.jpg) [![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/2012-01-0566321.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/2012-01-0566321.jpg) [![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the "Le Champagne rosé" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/1637-174204.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the ]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the "Le Champagne rosé" act from the music-hall show Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 1963. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/1637-174204.jpg) [![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/1531426.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for the music-hall show Zizi dans un spectacle de Roland Petit at Bobino, Paris, 1977. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/1531426.jpg) [![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/2012-01-0497320.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/2012-01-0497320.jpg) [![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/2012-01-0566321.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/2012-01-0566321.jpg) Next Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent ![Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the "Johnny et Sylvie" tour, 1973., © François Gaillard / Archives Filipacchi / Scoop](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/F1018174.jpg) ![Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the ]() Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the "Johnny et Sylvie" tour, 1973. © François Gaillard / Archives Filipacchi / Scoop Yves Saint Laurent also designed stage outfits for the singer Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday’s companion. He made several outfits for her, including a golden jumpsuit for her performance at the Olympia Theater in 1972. It was not only a very sensual garment, but also comfortable to wear, so much so that the singer continued to wear it on television and on tour after Yves Saint Laurent offered it to her: “In general, on stage, it is important to avoid relaxed clothing in favor of more structured creations. A designer must adapt his work knowing this. The most beautiful haute couture dress will not necessarily serve as a good stage costume. Saint Laurent was well aware of this.” [![](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/2012_01_1555342.jpg) ![]() Interactive Elements See animated images](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/new-entry-1#card-interactive-target-53-53) ![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/2012_01_1558344.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent ![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/2012_01_1557343.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent ![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/2012_01_1555342.jpg) ![Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of a costume for Sylvie Vartan in her 1972 show, choreographed by Howard Jeffrey at the Olympia, Paris, 1972. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent Chapter 10 ## The women authors ![Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973., © Christian Simonpiétri / Sygma Premium / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/Corbis-42-18674092.jpg) ![Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973., © Christian Simonpiétri / Sygma Premium / via Getty Images]() Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973. © Christian Simonpiétri / Sygma Premium / via Getty Images Yves Saint Laurent was close to several women of letters throughout his life. As a young man, he met Françoise Sagan. It was she who, in 1967, urged him to publish, through the Tchou publishing house, his album of the adventures of La vilaine Lulu, which Yves Saint Laurent began drawing ten years earlier while still working at Dior. For the most part, they would end up meeting at social events to which they both had been invited. They would speak little to each other but were “united” by their similar lives, which they felt were defined by “terrifying burdens and responsibilities, incompatible with our idea of what life should be and by our very nature.” In 1980, in an article she published on Yves Saint Laurent, Sagan said, “I knew \[...\] that he was a shy, secretive, talented and headstrong person. I would go on to learn that he was also lucid, passionate, uncompromising and generous.” ![Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/2012_01_0882_1.jpg) ![Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent In 1965, Yves Saint Laurent, who had done stage designs for the Renaud-Barrault theatrical company, designed the costumes for a play by Marguerite Duras, Entire Days in the Trees. He admired this woman of letters of whom he said, “She is undoubtedly the greatest French writer of our time. Her universe, her world view and lucidity speak to me. Rarely has one written about women with such emotion and sensuality.” The admiration is mutual. Marguerite Duras said of him, “I have never ceased to see him as a writer. And however removed from language his work may seem, I have never seen it as distinct from writing. He sees everyone as if the person before him were an entire world, and that's when he takes control of you. \[...\] He sees things you don't know about yourself.” Duras also wrote about the launch of the SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear line in 1966, which for her solved the problem of elitism posed by haute couture. ![Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/NUM_REBAR1982PH057.01.jpg) ![Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982., © Droits réservés]() Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982. © Droits réservés L’admiration est réciproque puisque Marguerite Duras dit de lui : « Je n’ai jamais cessé de le voir comme un écrivain. Et si loin des mots que puisse paraître son travail, je ne l’ai jamais séparé de l’écriture. Il voit chacun comme étant le monde entier et c’est dans cette situation-là qu’il se l’approprie. (...) Il voit de vous ce que vous ne savez pas que vous avez. », Marguerite Duras. Duras commente également le lancement de la ligne de prêt-à-porter SAINT LAURENT rive gauche, en 1966, qui pour elle résout le problème de l’élitisme que posait la haute couture. ![Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966., © AGIP / Bridgeman Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/00899.jpg) ![Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966., © AGIP / Bridgeman Images]() Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966. © AGIP / Bridgeman Images As the ultimate tribute to the emancipation of women and to their equality with men, Yves Saint Laurent designed the costume worn by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman to be admitted to the Académie Française. She was elected a member of the Academy on March 6, 1980, and entered the building on January 22, 1981, wearing a velvet houppelande tunic specially designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the occasion. “Madam, it is a great joy to welcome you to this old and illustrious house where you find yourself, certainly not the first to enter it, but the first of your sex to do so \[…\] a peaceful yet vibrantly revolutionary moment, which you manifest, on your own, as one of the most significant events that fill our long and glorious history. I will not shy away from saying, Madam, that it is not because you are a woman that you are here today: it is because you are a great writer.” ― Jean d´Ormesson on the occasion of Marguerite Yourcenar's admission to the Académie Française, 1980. The costume Yves Saint Laurent designed for Marguerite Yourcenar contributed to her “stunning entrance” at this historic event, in the words of the literary and theatrical critic Matthieu Galey. Previous [![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) ![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images]() Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey. © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) [![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) ![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) [![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) ![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images]() Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey. © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) [![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) ![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) [![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) ![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images]() Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey. © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) [![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) ![Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent]() Sketch of the Académie Française uniform for Marguerite Yourcenar, 1981. © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/Yourcenar81_2012_01_077016.jpg) Next Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey. © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images > \[...\] My dream is to give women the basics of a classic wardrobe which, escaping the fashion of the moment, gives them greater self-confidence. Through these clothes, I hope to make them happier. > > Yves Saint Laurent ## Share this chronicle: - [Share on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmuseeyslparis.com%2Fen%2Fstories%2Fnew-entry-1) - [Share on Facebook](https://twitter.com/home?status=https%3A%2F%2Fmuseeyslparis.com%2Fen%2Fstories%2Fnew-entry-1) ## Current Exhibition [![](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/covers/_ratio2x1_crop_1/HomepageJMPerier.jpg) ![]()](https://museeyslparis.com/en/exhibitions/fermeture-temporaire-pour-travaux) [⭢](https://museeyslparis.com/en/exhibitions/fermeture-temporaire-pour-travaux) 05\.05.2025 to 15\.09.2027 [Next Chronicle Betty Catroux, Feminine singular](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/betty-catroux-feminin-singulier) - [Venue Rental](https://museeyslparis.com/en/rent-a-space) - [Contact](https://museeyslparis.com/en/contact) - [Press](https://museeyslparis.com/en/press) © Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, [Legal Notice and Website Terms of Use](https://museeyslparis.com/en/terms-conditions) We use cookies to improve your experience on our website. 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Readable Markdown	Yves Saint Laurent surrounded by Laetitia Casta, Catherine Deneuve, and his models, all dressed in tuxedoes for the last fashion show, Centre Pompidou, Paris, January 22, 2002. Photograph by Guy Marineau. ### Yves Saint Laurent was always very close to women. Models, actresses, authors, artists, friends and collaborators―they were all essential to his inspiration and his work. As the couturier said in 1997: “Women and I love each other. My collections are love stories.” Chapter 1 ## The family circle ![Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/FAMILLE-DP1947-001FA.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent with his parents, Charles and Lucienne, and his sisters, Michèle and Brigitte, on a wedding. In Algeria, where he was born, Yves Saint Laurent was raised in a feminine environment, surrounded by his mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, his maternal grandmother, his great aunt and his two sisters. An avid reader of fashion magazines, such as Vogue, L'Illustration and Le Jardin des Modes, he was fascinated by his mother, who “spent most of her time dressing,” and by the ensembles she would wear from one evening to the next. ![Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/36274/YSL-et-sa-M%C3%A9re-mariage-de-Loulou-De-La-Falaise-le-11-Juin-1977.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent, his mother Lucienne, Marie-Thérèse Herzog and Gabrielle Busschaert on Loulou de La Falaise's wedding, Paris, January 11, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau. > Yves has always been interested in fashion. At three, he would cry if he didn't like my dress. \[...\] He did the sets for the Yacht Club and for receptions, as well as the costumes for the dance school. ![Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès., © François Pagès / Paris Match / Scoop](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/PM-0020112_INC_013116.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and his paper dolls, Paris, 1957. Photograph by François Pagès. Growing up in an environment that inspired him, Yves Saint Laurent’s early creative streak first became apparent in the paper dolls that he would dress up to the delight of his first audience, his two sisters Michèle and Brigitte. Born in 1942 and 1945, they were close to their elder brother, with whom they maintained a very tight bond. To further entertain them, Yves would invent adventure stories that took place in an imaginary world into which they would happily enter. > Every time I design a collection, I rediscover my childhood, I commune with it. > > Yves Saint Laurent Chapter 2 ## The idolized couturiers ![Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36272/MAR.HC1990E042_0076.jpg) Suit worn by Maureen Gallagher, hommage to Mademoiselle Chanel. Spring-Summer 1990 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 24, 1990. In 1968, seven years after the launching of his own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent was referred to by Gabrielle Chanel as her heir apparent, “because someday someone will have to continue what I’ve done.” The legendary couturier, who revolutionized the feminine wardrobe by freeing it from the corset and by offering the comfort of trousers, was gradually withdrawing from the fashion world, which had been overtaken by the events of May ’68 and the winds of modernity inspired by the youth movement and street fashion, something which she had trouble understanding. Yves Saint Laurent, on the other hand, was inspired by precisely this revolutionary atmosphere that led him to create the wardrobe of the modern woman. In the spirit of what Gabrielle Chanel had accomplished at the beginning of the 20th century, he sought to free women from the clothing that hindered them. While offering them a modern sense of comfort and elegance, he would design a wardrobe that would place women on a par with men. > Chanel gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent empowered them. > > Pierre Bergé "Dim Dam Dom : Yves Saint Laurent répond à Mademoiselle Chanel", Remy Grumbach, March 10, 1968, collection RTF / ORTF © INA Yves Saint Laurent also greatly admired the work of the renowned couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, who had been very close to the Surrealist group during the years between the two World Wars. Her oeuvre, nurtured by her friendship and collaborative work with artists and writers such as Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, clearly stood apart from the neoclassical orientation of fashion at the time. ![Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36365/0121YSL_Couture_F-W_2000-01_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) Evening ensemble including a « rose shocking » satin cape embroidered by Lesage, worn by Amalia Vairelli. Autumn-Winter 2000 haute couture collection. Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, 11 juillet 2000. Yves Saint Laurent and Elsa Schiaparelli shared a passion for the ornamental embellishment of clothing and for daring colors such as the “shocking pink” so associated with the latter. Saint Laurent would pay tribute to her work in several of his designs, such as in his “broken mirror” jacket, a motif that Schiaparelli had used in 1935 for an embroidered jacket. Chapter 3 ## The fashion models of the early years ![Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/NUM_HC1962E097PH01.0165.jpg) Evening dress worn by Victoire Doutreleau, Spring-Summer 1962 haute couture collection, salons of 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1962. [In 1955, when he began working at Christian Dior](https://museeyslparis.com/en/stories/les-annees-dior-1-1) at the age of 18, Yves Saint Laurent met Victoire Doutreleau, the couture house's star model. She quickly became Yves Saint Laurent’s favorite model, despite not having the measurements usually associated with runway models―she was smaller and less slender. And yet it was her way of wearing and embodying the garment that made such an impression on the young couturier. It must have been then that he realized the importance of designing directly on a fashion model, who not only wears the garment but moves with it and brings it to life. Victoire followed Yves Saint Laurent when he founded his own fashion house in 1961. > From one collection to another, the same image presents itself to me: that of Victoire, the sublime model and marvelous muse.” > > Yves Saint Laurent ![Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/NUM_DEJAP1963PH035.01.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau Yves Saint Laurent et Victoire Doutreleau backstage at a fashion show organized in Japan, Tokyo, April 12, 1963. Following in the footsteps of Victoire, another model caught the designer’s attention. Red-haired, skinny and with a slightly androgynous face, Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain was 19 when she introduced herself to Yves Saint Laurent. Her carefree attitude and way of presenting herself made her seem, in the couturier’s eyes, the embodiment of modernity and energy of the street that the couturier was drawn to. Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain played the role of muse for many of the couturier’s iconic garments: It was with her in mind that he created his first tuxedo-inspired smokings and his first safari jacket, as well as the infamous transparent black blouse that caused a scandal after Danielle paraded it topless down the runway. Chapter 4 ## The close friends Yves Saint Laurent met one of his closest friends, Betty Catroux, in a nightclub in 1967. They immediately become inseparable. Betty Catroux became his double, his twin, his accomplice. Together, they cultivated a “taste for everything seedy” and for all that Parisian nightlife had to offer. > Yves fell head over heels in love, a physical love. Although I was androgynous and asexual―he was certainly attracted to that―our rapport was not only physical; we also resembled each other morally, mentally, which was pretty incredible ... and his astute mind realized that I could be his soul mate. > > Betty Catroux ![Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36359/LOULOU-0008YSL_1980_RTW_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise backstage at the Saint Laurent rive gauche Spring-Summer 1980 fashion show, Paris, 1979. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Along with Betty Catroux, Louise de La Falaise was one of Yves Saint Laurent’s closest friends. Born in England in 1948, she was the daughter of a French aristocrat and an Anglo-Irish woman. When they met in 1968, Yves Saint Laurent was immediately charmed by this radiant young woman. At the time, she would dress in flea market finds and create for herself a look that was as elegant as it was original. Yves Saint Laurent went everywhere with Betty and Loulou: They would be seen together at runway shows, parties, trips overseas―they were an inseparable trio. ![Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/36275/0006YSL_Betty-et-Loulou_1979_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) Loulou de La Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the couturier’s home, 55 rue de Babylone, Paris, 1978. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Chapter 5 ## The colleagues ![Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36277/YSL-et-Loulou-1975.jpg) Loulou de La Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent in preparation of a SAINT LAURENT rive gauche collection, studio of 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1975. Photograph by Guy Marineau. As well as being a close friend, Loulou de la Falaise worked alongside Yves Saint Laurent at the couture house. She entered the couturier’s private workspace―the Studio as it was called―in 1972, where she remained beside the couturier for thirty years. She was quickly put in charge of accessories, which she preferred to be oversized and colorful, and was also responsible for the knitwear line. ![Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine., © Yves Saint Laurent / Peter Caine (Sydney) - DR](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36353/DPX-203-2AC.jpg) Clara Saint and Catherine Deneuve, studio of 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1967. Photograph by Peter Caine. Press officer for the SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear line from 1968, Clara Saint took an active part in the life of the fashion house. She was a close friend of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and introduced them to Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso. Passionate about cinema, Clara participated in the production of several advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent fragrances, as the famous Opium, launched by the house in 1977. ![Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/Yves-Saint-Laurent-Anne-Marie-Mu%C3%B1oz-et-Pierre-Berg%C3%A9-dans-le-studio-5-avenue-Marceau-1977.-Photographie-de-Guy-Marineau.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent, Anne-Marie Muñoz and Pierre Bergé in the couturier’s studio, 5 Avenue Marceau, 1977. Photograph by Guy Marineau. Another permanent presence in Yves Saint Laurent’s Studio was Anne-Marie Muñoz-Yagüe. She previously had worked at Christian Dior, arriving there in February 1951, where she discovered the ins and outs of haute couture. It was there that she met Yves Saint Laurent in 1955. Their paths briefly parted when Yves Saint Laurent left Dior. Anne-Marie Muñoz went on to work at Guy Laroche for a year, before joining the House of Yves Saint Laurent in 1963 as director of the Studio. She oversaw the entire creative process for more than 150 haute couture and ready-to-wear collections at the couture house until its closure in 2002. ![Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966., © Pierre Lelièvre / Gamma Rapho](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/GRK5952802.jpg) Mireille Mathieu wearing Yves Saint Laurent, in one of the haute couture house's ateliers, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1966. “The couture house is like an anthill bursting with energy, in which nearly two hundred people work, mostly women. A deep complicity existed between Saint Laurent and everyone working there, as reflected by what Madame Catherine, a former workshop director had to say: “He does not need to speak. I understand before he speaks.” Under the leadership of the workshop directors, Yves Saint Laurent’s seamstresses earned his deep trust to realize his most extraordinary creations, as he made clear in an interview: “Beside me \[...\] there are also the seamstresses, those who work by hand and who are the holders and last custodians of the secrets of haute couture \[...\]. Apart from them \[...\] there are the women who work at the machines, day and night. I sometimes make them destroy everything they’ve done. I would never offend them by letting them work on something without believing in it myself.” Extract from the film "Yves Saint Laurent, 5, Avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris", David Teboul, 2002 © David Teboul / Swan Productions English subtitles are available through the settings menu in the player Chapter 6 ## The Yves Saint Laurent spirit ![Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/DENEUVE-NUM_ANNIV1982PH579.01.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and Catherine Deneuve photographed at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret du Lido, Paris, janvier 1982. Among the women close to Yves Saint Laurent, there were those who embodied his creative spirit, obviously through the clothes they wore, but also in their attitude. Catherine Deneuve was twenty-two when she first met Yves Saint Laurent. When she learned that she would be presented to the Queen of England, the young woman chose Yves Saint Laurent to dress her. In 1966, the actress became the godmother of sorts of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear boutique, an embodiment of the youth and modernity that Yves Saint Laurent sought in his revolutionary clothing line. A faithful friend to the end, Catherine Deneuve attended all the important anniversary celebrations of the couture house, up until its very last runway show, held at the Pompidou Center on January 22, 2002, where she closed the evening by singing with Laetitia Casta, “Ma plus belle histoire d’amour” (My Most Beautiful Love story) by Barbara. ![Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971., © AGIP / Bridgeman Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/XRA-1657018113.jpg) Paloma Picasso, Marisa Berenson and Loulou de La Falaise, photographed at the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1971 haute couture collection, 30 bis rue Spontini, Paris, January 29, 1971. Meeting Pablo Picasso's youngest daughter, Paloma, was an “aesthetic jolt” for Yves Saint Laurent. She embodied the new face of an anti-establishment freedom that the designer was forever pursuing in his work. Almost immediately, Paloma gave him the impetus to become more audacious, to “kick the anthill” as it were. It was her “flea market” look, at once elegant, daring and innovative―composed of turbans, fur boleros and dresses from the thirties and forties―that would inspire Yves Saint Laurent when designing his Summer 1971 collection, which came to be known as “La collection du scandale” (The Scandal Collection). ![Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/NUM_ANNIV1982PH351.01.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and Paloma Picasso at the 20th anniversary of the haute couture house, Cabaret Le Lido, Paris, January 28, 1982. As mentioned above, Betty Catroux was not only Yves Saint Laurent’s close friend, but also the embodiment of the Saint Laurent style. Even before they met, she already had an affinity for men's clothes, in which she felt the most herself. Betty Catroux played an essential role in the work of Yves Saint Laurent, who for several years had defined his own style by drawing on the codes of the masculine wardrobe. He kept the cut, comfort and practicality of men’s clothing while adjusting them to a feminine silhouette, combining simplicity and elegance. ![Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/c-Droits-re%E2%95%A0%C3%BCserve%E2%95%A0%C3%BCs-Bettynum2_04.jpg) Betty Catroux, place de l’Odéon, Paris, 1980s. Chapter 7 ## The fashion models ![Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989., © Yves Saint Laurent / Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/10.-D%C3%A9fil%C3%A9-HC-PE-1989-%C2%A9-photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) Cape embroidered with bougainvilleas, worn by Amalia Vairelli during the fashion show for the spring-summer 1989 haute couture collection, Salon impérial of the Hôtel Inter-Continental, Paris, January 1989. When designing a couture garment, the presence of a model is essential. Unlike Gabrielle Chanel who worked on inanimate mannequins, Yves Saint Laurent could not design without a live fashion model beside him, as he felt that they were integral to giving life to the garment. Very often, it was with particular fashion models in mind that Yves Saint Laurent designed his collections. Yves Saint Laurent was the first couturier to include black models in a runway show. Several, such as Katoucha Niane, Mounia Orosemane and Amalia Vairelli, would go on to become his favorite fashion models. He appreciated how the models’ skin tones complemented the colors he used in his fabrics. One of the models he frequently used, Amalia Vairelli, worked both as an in-house model and in runway shows, where she was often presented with “The Heart,” a sumptuous piece of jewelry, considered a sort of fetish by the couturier, which would be worn by his favorite model. ![Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/36280/0002YSL_1984_Studio_Photo-Guy-Marineau.jpg) Models Violeta Sanchez, Jane, Rebecca Ayoko, Kirat Young, Marita Schaub and Mounia Orosemane in the salons of 5, avenue Marceau, 1984. Photograph by Guy Marineau. > When I see a fashion model, I know what I'm going to design for her. It's like love at first sight. I fall in love. > > Yves Saint Laurent ![Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36361/RTW-F-W-1996-97-1.jpg) Claudia Schiffer and Yves Saint Laurent at the finale of the Saint Laurent rive gauche Autumn-Winter 1996 fashion show. The Heart was also often worn by Laetitia Casta, who met Yves Saint Laurent in 1996. Despite not having the slender silhouette typical of models employed by the couture house, Laetitia Casta very quickly became one of the couturier’s favorite models, the one he chose to wear, on multiple occasions, the wedding dress that closed every runway show. Yves Saint Laurent nicknamed her his "bird of paradise," and designed a dress for his Spring-Summer 2000 collection with her in mind, fashioned entirely with feathers from this exotic bird. Extract from the haute couture Spring-Summer 2000 collection. © Yves Saint Laurent © Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent / Droits Réservés Chapter 8 ## The clients ![Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/DP1975-003PR.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and Nan Kempner at a fashion show organized by the haute couture house, The Pierre Hotel, New York, November 1974. Beginning with the very first collection presented by the couture house, a number of celebrities attended the young couturier's runway shows and became his clients. Seated in the front rows, they included some of the most prominent members of society at the time, such as Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and the Countess de Ribes, but also international celebrities such as the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor and Lauren Bacall. Later, several wives of leading French politicians would also choose to dress in Yves Saint Laurent, including Claude Pompidou, Danielle Mitterrand, Monique Lang and Bernadette Chirac. Among the rich and famous that gravitated to Yves Saint Laurent, the American Nan Kempner would become one of the couture house's most loyal clients. She met Yves Saint Laurent at Dior in 1958. The elegance that characterized her style earned her praise from Diana Vreeland, the renowned American fashion editor: “There is no such thing as a chic American woman. The only exception is Nan Kempner.” Over the course of her life, Nan Kempner assembled a wardrobe that included a thousand dresses, three hundred and seventy-six bearing the label of her favorite designer. She said of Yves Saint Laurent: “I don't believe there is a single woman in the world who has not been influenced by him.” > American women provided me with such inspiration. Nan Kempner has always represented in my eyes a modern, free, independent and elegant woman. She is probably the one who wore my clothes the best, and with whom I had the longest and greatest bond. > > Yves Saint Laurent ![Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979., © Guy Marineau](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/36223/c-Guy-Marineau-YSL-C.Aillaud-1979-1.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Aillaud, Paris, 1979. Charlotte Aillaud, an icon of the vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Prés social scene and sister of Juliette Gréco, met Yves Saint Laurent in 1964 through Françoise Sagan. She would become one of his most loyal clients, as shown by her letters to the couturier kept by the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris: “My very dear Yves, just to tell you how moved I was the other evening watching these marvels from your wonderful universe paraded before me. Watching this magical farandole, I was flooded with memories, and Gilberte's daughter at the ball from In Search of Lost Time came to mind: ‘I found her beautiful, she looked like my youth.’ I embrace you as I love you: deeply.” Chapter 9 ## The artists A number of women artists also played an important role in the work of the couturier. They allowed him to pursue his interest in the arts and the world of entertainment. Yves Saint Laurent maintained a special bond with Claude Lalanne, the only artist with whom he collaborated with on a collection. The couturier asked her to make a set of “imprint” accessories for his Fall-Winter 1969 collection. Other jewels designed by her would follow, as well as helmets and headdresses inspired by plant motifs dear to Claude Lalanne. Their collaboration lasted several years until 1983. While working at Dior in 1956, Yves Saint Laurent met Roland Petit’s partner, the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. They bonded immediately and quickly became close friends. Zizi Jeanmaire and Yves Saint Laurent at a fitting session of Roxane's costume for the "Cyrano de Bergerac" ballet, Maison Christian Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne, Paris, 1959. Yves Saint Laurent created extravagant feather costumes for her, fulfilling a desire to design for the stage that had been with him since adolescence: “In a music hall, everything is there. One only needs three things to conjure up an entire world. With a bundle of black feathers make a big hat. Then perch it on a tall, naked black girl, and when she arrives on stage, let it become nothing less than a coup de théâtre \[...\] And the music hall, even more so than the theater, is life turned upside down. Poor materials can be made sumptuous and vice versa. [![Sketch of a costume for Zizi Jeanmaire in the music-hall show Show Zizi Jeanmaire, directed by Roland Petit at the Théâtre de l'Olympia, Paris, 1968., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/2012-01-0497320.jpg)](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/2012-01-0497320.jpg) Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday on the "Johnny et Sylvie" tour, 1973. Yves Saint Laurent also designed stage outfits for the singer Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday’s companion. He made several outfits for her, including a golden jumpsuit for her performance at the Olympia Theater in 1972. It was not only a very sensual garment, but also comfortable to wear, so much so that the singer continued to wear it on television and on tour after Yves Saint Laurent offered it to her: “In general, on stage, it is important to avoid relaxed clothing in favor of more structured creations. A designer must adapt his work knowing this. The most beautiful haute couture dress will not necessarily serve as a good stage costume. Saint Laurent was well aware of this.” Chapter 10 ## The women authors ![Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973., © Christian Simonpiétri / Sygma Premium / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/Corbis-42-18674092.jpg) Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Sagan, Yves Saint Laurent and Zizi Jeanmaire at a fashion show of the haute couture house, 30bis rue Spontini, Paris, 1973. Yves Saint Laurent was close to several women of letters throughout his life. As a young man, he met Françoise Sagan. It was she who, in 1967, urged him to publish, through the Tchou publishing house, his album of the adventures of La vilaine Lulu, which Yves Saint Laurent began drawing ten years earlier while still working at Dior. For the most part, they would end up meeting at social events to which they both had been invited. They would speak little to each other but were “united” by their similar lives, which they felt were defined by “terrifying burdens and responsibilities, incompatible with our idea of what life should be and by our very nature.” In 1980, in an article she published on Yves Saint Laurent, Sagan said, “I knew \[...\] that he was a shy, secretive, talented and headstrong person. I would go on to learn that he was also lucid, passionate, uncompromising and generous.” ![Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite., © Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/2012_01_0882_1.jpg) Costume project for the play « Des journées entières dans les arbres » of Marguerite Duras, Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, December 1st, 1965, portrait in pencil graphite. In 1965, Yves Saint Laurent, who had done stage designs for the Renaud-Barrault theatrical company, designed the costumes for a play by Marguerite Duras, Entire Days in the Trees. He admired this woman of letters of whom he said, “She is undoubtedly the greatest French writer of our time. Her universe, her world view and lucidity speak to me. Rarely has one written about women with such emotion and sensuality.” The admiration is mutual. Marguerite Duras said of him, “I have never ceased to see him as a writer. And however removed from language his work may seem, I have never seen it as distinct from writing. He sees everyone as if the person before him were an entire world, and that's when he takes control of you. \[...\] He sees things you don't know about yourself.” Duras also wrote about the launch of the SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear line in 1966, which for her solved the problem of elitism posed by haute couture. ![Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982., © Droits réservés](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio3x2_fit_1/NUM_REBAR1982PH057.01.jpg) Pierre Bergé and Marguerite Duras, Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris, December 1982. L’admiration est réciproque puisque Marguerite Duras dit de lui : « Je n’ai jamais cessé de le voir comme un écrivain. Et si loin des mots que puisse paraître son travail, je ne l’ai jamais séparé de l’écriture. Il voit chacun comme étant le monde entier et c’est dans cette situation-là qu’il se l’approprie. (...) Il voit de vous ce que vous ne savez pas que vous avez. », Marguerite Duras. Duras commente également le lancement de la ligne de prêt-à-porter SAINT LAURENT rive gauche, en 1966, qui pour elle résout le problème de l’élitisme que posait la haute couture. ![Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966., © AGIP / Bridgeman Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_ratio1x1_fit_1/00899.jpg) Yves Saint Laurent and Ulla Caremby in front of the first SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris, September 26, 1966. As the ultimate tribute to the emancipation of women and to their equality with men, Yves Saint Laurent designed the costume worn by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman to be admitted to the Académie Française. She was elected a member of the Academy on March 6, 1980, and entered the building on January 22, 1981, wearing a velvet houppelande tunic specially designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the occasion. “Madam, it is a great joy to welcome you to this old and illustrious house where you find yourself, certainly not the first to enter it, but the first of your sex to do so \[…\] a peaceful yet vibrantly revolutionary moment, which you manifest, on your own, as one of the most significant events that fill our long and glorious history. I will not shy away from saying, Madam, that it is not because you are a woman that you are here today: it is because you are a great writer.” ― Jean d´Ormesson on the occasion of Marguerite Yourcenar's admission to the Académie Française, 1980. The costume Yves Saint Laurent designed for Marguerite Yourcenar contributed to her “stunning entrance” at this historic event, in the words of the literary and theatrical critic Matthieu Galey. [![Marguerite Yourcenar in her uniform designed by Yves Saint Laurent for her entrance at the Académie Française, Paris, January 22, 1981. Photograph by Pierre Vauthey., © Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / via Getty Images](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_slider_1/GettyImages-627498524.jpg)](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/musee-ysl-paris/images/_max_res/GettyImages-627498524.jpg) > \[...\] My dream is to give women the basics of a classic wardrobe which, escaping the fashion of the moment, gives them greater self-confidence. Through these clothes, I hope to make them happier. > > Yves Saint Laurent
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