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Yves Saint Laurent: A French Fashion History
Known as the fashion capital of the world, France has been known to produce some of the best designers we have ever known. Yves Saint Laurent is no exception, but even more, he is known as the foundation for this reputation. Yves Saint Laurent was a fashion designer who started the eponymous multi-billion dollar company. Often called just YSL, Yves Saint Laurent is revered by the fashion world. However, this was not always the case. Mr. Saint Laurent had to start his company from the ground up, and it certainly has a bumpy history. Join us as we dive deep into the history of YSL and new brand developments taking place today. We will explore the timeline of YSL. Talk about revolutionary ideas. And learn some inspiring facts about the brand that has enamored many.
The Beginning of YSL, But Not the Brand
Mr. Saint Laurent did not start his fashion empire with himself but rather for someone else. Born in Algeria, not France, Yves was attending fashion school when someone else caught his eye. Christian Dior, the creator of Maison Dior, thought that Saint Laurent’s fashion designs were quite interesting. At 17, Saint Laurent became his mentee and later became the head of The House of Dior after Dior suddenly passed away. Saint Laurent was creating little black dresses for Dior and running things quite smoothly. In 1958 he met Pierre Bergé, who was attending his first fashion show. The two became romantically involved, and life was good. It seemed that Yves would take over Dior, but luck would soon not be in his favor.
In 1960, due to multiple competing reasons, Yves left Dior. Some say that he suffered a nervous breakdown after induction into the French Army. While others claim that he lost his job after going back to Algeria. Either way, he was quickly replaced, leaving him no place in the fashion world. However, this did not stop him. In 1961, alongside Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent started the YSL brand, and so began its iconic history. Needless to say, it boomed. It was with his brand that his designs not only became popular but also revolutionized women’s fashion.
Unique & Rebellious Wardrobes
It was with YSL that Saint Laurent could explore the gender-neutral designs that he was creating. Blurring those lines was one of the things that Saint Laurent was most famous for. But first, in 1965, Yves debuted the iconic Mondrian dress. The sack dress style was evolving, and the designer saw the simple form as the perfect plane for contemporary artist Mondrian’s color blocks. The dress also showcased a feat of dressmaking as each block of colored jersey perfectly seamed together.
Next, in iconic Yves Saint Laurent brand history, he began to put metallic pants and suits on his runway looks. This championed the unisex look for women, allowing women to dress in a more masculine way. Slicked-back hair and pantsuits were the rage.
For a woman, the tuxedo is an indispensable garment in which she will always feel in style, for it is a stylish garment and a not a fashionable garment. Fashions fade, style is eternal.
Yves Saint Laurent
One of the most iconic and influential of these designs was a suit titled Le Smoking. It was both feminine and masculine because Saint Laurent took pieces of both. It was designed for women, so the tailoring was slightly different to fit a female body. However, this design was revolutionary as was completely new. By reflecting his own gender-neutral fashion, Saint Laurent was able to empower women to dress in a more masculine way if they so choose. First released as part of the Autumn/Winter 1966/67 collection, the look quickly became a classic and appeared in each collection until 2002.
Growing a Brand
Saint Laurent worked tirelessly on both the haute-couture lines and the ready-to-wear lines of his house in the later 1960s and early 1970s. In addition to creating revolutionary suits, the brand also released its first perfume, named “Y” in 1964. By getting into perfume, as well as fashion, the House was growing by the year. In 1971 Yves Saint Laurent went for shocking impact again, posing nude for the ad campaign for his first fragrance for men, Pour Homme.
Perfume was not the only new line. Yves also started to dip into men’s fashion and household items. In 1976, Bergé and Saint Laurent split amicably, and Bergé continued as CEO of the brand’s Haute Couture. While YSL was in numerous different areas, they were still well known for their gender-fluid suits and the accessories that came with them. The company was growing, but things always changed at the House of YSL.
A Change Is A-Comin’
Things were going well, but in 1999 the House of Yves Saint Laurent was sold to Kering, who put another man in charge of the ready-to-wear lines. While this still left Saint Laurent to run the haute-couture gallery, he did not have complete creative control as he had before.
Who was put in charge of the ready-to-wear lines? None other than Tom Ford, who at the time worked for Gucci. Tom Ford had different creative designs, causing tension between the two men. Instead of showing the accessories with a more unisex look, Ford wanted monochromatic and more provocative. Ford’s designs were flashy, and Saint Laurent disapproved greatly. It caused much tension in the House, and Laurent even claimed that the brand was ruined. Even though they disagreed very strongly on creative designs, Ford lifted Yves Saint Laurent into a new tax bracket, creating a profit of millions and shaping the brand’s history.
Saint Laurent retired from the company in the early 2000s, and Ford left YSL only a couple of years later. Ford was replaced by a new head, who continued down the path of more feminine fashion pieces. This changed the vision of YSL from unisex to decidedly more feminine collections. It was in the hands of neither Ford nor Saint Laurent that things started to shift for the company, but not without criticisms.
Death and the Aftermath
Sadly Saint Laurent died of brain cancer in 2008. According to The New York Times, shortly before Saint Laurent’s death, he and Bergé married in a same-sex civil union in France. The following years were not great for the YSL brand. Under the new direction of Hedi Slimane, the previous head of Dior, that brand received disapproval from the public for a collection featuring almost sickly-skinny models in pieces that YSL was not known for. The show received criticism both for the look of the models and how completely un-YSL the looks were. Slimane also removed ‘Yves’ from the beginning of the company name, now renamed “Saint Laurent”.
Nonetheless, this disapproval of the public did not stop sales, as the House of YSL was still growing. What did not continue was Slimane’s contract renewal in the 2010s. It later became a court case that was settled, and a new head was placed in charge. As usual, no matter the gossip, The House of Yves Saint Laurent lives to see another day and another leader in its brand history.
YSL Today
Anthony Vaccarello: A Decade of Saint Laurent
Since 2016, Belgian designer Anthony Vaccarello has led Saint Laurent as creative director. He was born in Brussels to Sicilian parents and studied at La Cambre, where he started in sculpture before switching to fashion. He worked under Karl Lagerfeld at Fendi, launched his own label, and was creative director of Versus Versace. When he arrived at Saint Laurent to succeed Hedi Slimane, he already had a signature: sharp shoulders, sheer fabrics and a frank kind of sensuality.
Over ten years, Vaccarello turned that signature into a whole world. His runways went beyond Paris to the Agafay Desert in Morocco, a Venetian island and Malibu’s Paradise Cove. In 2023 he launched Saint Laurent Productions, a film company that has worked with Pedro Almodóvar (Strange Way of Life), David Cronenberg and Jacques Audiard, whose Emilia Pérez was one of the most talked-about films of its year. His Saint Laurent Rive Droite boutiques in Paris and Beverly Hills mix fashion with art, books and design. Few creative directors have shaped a house’s culture as much as its clothes.
Saint Laurent, Vaccarello’s Way
Under Vaccarello, Saint Laurent has felt both familiar and new. He treats the archive as a starting point, not a script. The tuxedo, the saharienne, the trench and the power shoulder come back season after season, made sharper, sheerer and more sensual each time. Black is still the house’s home color. Accessories like big earrings, draped jewelry and dark sunglasses have become as recognizable as the clothes.
The house has kept growing alongside him. In 2022, Saint Laurent passed €3 billion in sales for the first time. When luxury slowed across the industry it held its ground, and by the first half of 2026 Kering reported it was growing again. Through it all, Saint Laurent has kept the elegance, confidence and touch of rebellion that its founder would still recognize.
Spring/Summer 2027: A Golden Goodbye?
On September 29, 2026, ten years after his first Saint Laurent show, Vaccarello sent out his Spring/Summer 2027 collection beneath the Eiffel Tower. Giant gold chandeliers hung over a glossy black runway, and the tower itself was lit gold behind it.
The collection was gold from start to finish. There was lamé, organza, guipure lace, brocade and even gold-leafed latex, each in a slightly different shade so no two looks shone the same way. Archive pieces like sahariennes, trench coats, blouses and wrap skirts sat beside Vaccarello’s own strong-shouldered coats and sharp suits. Accessories leaned into excess, with large jeweled earrings and gilded heels shaped like twisting snakes.
Then the gold slowly turned to black. The finale was velvet tailoring and three billowing black evening gowns, a reversal of Yves Saint Laurent’s 1991 Rive Gauche collection.
Charlotte Gainsbourg performed in a classic Saint Laurent black suit, and Vaccarello took his bow alongside her. His show notes were what got everyone talking:
“A light shines all the more brightly because we know it cannot be held. What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.”
— Anthony Vaccarello
What’s Next for Saint Laurent
Reports in the weeks before the show said Vaccarello is preparing to step down. As of publication, neither Saint Laurent nor Kering has confirmed his departure or named a successor. Some reports have linked Chloé creative director Chemena Kamali, a former Saint Laurent design director, to the role, but that is still speculation.
Whatever comes next, Spring/Summer 2027 felt like a designer looking back on his work, maybe for the last time. If it was his farewell, it was a very good one. As Monsieur Saint Laurent said, fashions fade and style is eternal. Vaccarello’s decade has added real style to the house.
Discover Saint Laurent’s World of Gold →
Dreaming in gold? Scroll down for our Gold Edit, KOKET’s most gilded pieces for the home.
The GOLD Edit: Going for Gold, at Home
Vaccarello made gold feel powerful, not just pretty. At KOKET, Love Happens’ publisher, gold has always been a love language: gold leaf, polished brass and gilded metal, handcrafted by our artisans in Portugal so that no two pieces catch the light the same way. And like Saint Laurent’s runway, our gold looks its best next to a little black. Here’s how to bring this season’s gilded mood home.
Myth Coffee Table
Two polished brass forms at different heights, joined by a sunburst etched across the top. It’s pure, unapologetic gold, the opening look of the room.
Obssedia Console
A sculptural cast base in high-gloss gold chromium, topped with smoked glass. Your eye follows its curves up and down the way it would follow a gold lamé gown down the runway.
Heive Cabinet
Black lacquer behind a burst of polished brass, with a honeycomb handle as the finishing jewel. It’s the Queen Bee of black-and-gold cabinets, as dramatic as a Saint Laurent shoulder.
Yasmine Gold Leaf Side Table
Nero Marquina marble edged in brass, resting on a gold-leaf base wrapped in a gilded arc. It’s a small piece with big shine, the home version of a statement earring.
Zeba Chaise
After the gold, the black. It has soft curves, supple upholstery and glossy black lacquered legs, “the perfect date for a late night evening cocktail.” Think of it as your own finale gown.
Discover KOKET’s World of Gold →
Words by Alison Morrison / Updated by Anna Beck Oct 2026
Feature Image: Yves Saint Laurent devant les planches de collection d’un défilé, studio du 5 avenue Marceau, Paris, 1986. © Droits réservés
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