Yves Saint Laurent, the most revered fashion designer of the second half of the twentieth century, died in Paris on Sunday at the age of 71. Here, his colleagues in the industry reflect on the loss and the legacy.
Diane von Furstenberg, designer: "I'm very sad. Saint Laurent, he was a great designer. He made women feel like women. He inspired so many people. He was a great artist. He was really important and influential, and it's very sad."
Francisco Costa, designer, Calvin Klein Collection: "It gives me the chills to think about it. In my time, he was probably the most important designer that ever lived. We have all the references of all the wonderful designers, but he was really it. His sense of color, of class, the way he brought the street into fashion. He made it in a really elevated way. I think it's very sad. You always think that even if he's not active, he's there. You just felt that he was there as a presence."
Maria Cornejo, designer: "He really was an original. I think he's got such a legacy, especially of the French houses, you know. None of them have French designers except for Balenciaga. And [Saint Laurent] was the one that lasted the longest and had an identity and such a legacy."
Valerie Steele, director, the Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology: "Well, after Chanel, he was the most influential designer of the twentieth century. He totally changed the way people dressed repeatedly. Repeatedly, he reconfigured fashion—inventing the look of women in trouser suits for day and for night. After Poiret, he was the major exponent of exoticism in fashion. He was the greatest colorist of fashion."
Robert Burke, principal, Robert Burke Associates: "I remember the couture shows in Paris when I first started going.… Mostly I remember the team of people he put together—Loulou de la Falaise, Pierre Bergé. It was a very unique time in fashion. It was completely about creativity and beauty."
Jack McCollough, designer, Proenza Schouler: "He just has such a long heritage. How old was he when he started at Christian Dior? Twenty-one? I love that picture of him on the balcony with all the reporters. He was so fresh and so young. He just had such a long career."
Simon Doonan, creative director, Barneys New York: "I'm devastated. All my Saint Laurent memories came flooding back of those incredible shows where half the audience were clients. You'd never get that today.… He managed to be creative but also in the French vernacular. So that's why women loved his clothes. He really showed people how to take influences in very explicit ways. If he was having a cigarette-girl moment or Chinese moment or a Russian moment, he was very explicit. It wasn't diluted. It was kind of courageously full-on."
Michael Kors, designer: "I don't think that any woman realizes how much in her closet started out being Saint Laurent. You know, you could live in Zimbabwe and never read a fashion magazine, but you could have in your closet Saint Laurent or something inspired by [him]. I think he was really the first designer who understood modern life—a woman who was on the move and powerful and sexy."
Dries Van Noten, designer: "I remember having seen the old exhibition. I think it was in the early eighties, here at the Metropolitan. I just came out of fashion school and it made a huge impression on me. I bought a catalog, and I still look often at that catalog because it's something which really formed me as a designer—the use of color, the use of shape, and the use of referencing to a source of inspiration in a very specific way but also quite obvious.… It always will be a big inspiration."
Monday, June 02, 2008 11:12 AM
