Yves Saint Laurent

Legendary designer Yves Saint Laurent revolutionised French fashion in the 1960s and his luxurious legacy lives on, says Heidi Fuller-love

- Heidi Fuller-love

Synonymous in most people’s minds with his most popular designs – the Saharienne safari jacket, the Mondrian-print shift dress and the tuxedo for women – Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent was hardly destined to become one of France’s most celebrated fashion designers.

Born in 1936 in the Algerian port city of Oran, Saint Laurent grew up in affluent surroundings. Paraphrasing French poet Baudelaire he later said: “Genius is youth recaptured.”

Surprisingly, however, his own childhood was often unhappy. Mercilessly bullied at school because of his thick glasses and gentle manner, he preferred to stay at home, reading his mother’s fashion magazines and designing clothes for his two younger sisters.

Saint Laurent was still a teenager when his mother showed some of her son’s sketches to Michael de Brunhoff, the editor of French Vogue. Brunhoff was seduced by the young designer’s work and helped him to move to Paris, where he began studies at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. After winning a contest for young fashion designers organized by the International Wool Secretariat, the young Yves was hired to work for Christian Dior, of whom he later said: “He taught me the basis of my art.”