[Deathwatch] Yves Saint Laurent, fashion icon, 71

[Deathwatch Central]

Fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent dead at 71
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/06/01/laurent.obit/index.html

PARIS, France (CNN) -- International fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent
died Sunday night at his home in Paris, longtime friend and business
associate Pierre Berge said. He was 71.

 Saint Laurent was the last of an era of fashion designers that
included Coco Chanel and Christian Dior, for whom Saint Laurent worked
until Dior's death in 1957. Berge, chief executive of the fashion
house, told France Info Radio that Saint Laurent died at 11 p.m. (5
p.m. ET).

"There are not that many people in the pantheon of fashion," Berge told
the station. "There will be two who will undeniably remain -- one who
symbolized the first part of the 20th century, and that's Chanel, and
the other one who will symbolize the second part of the 20th century,
and that's Yves Saint Laurent."

Saint Laurent's became synonymous with the glamour of the Paris catwalk
and the elegance of haute couture.

He took Paris by storm in the 1960s and 1970s with his masculine, yet
elegant, trouser suits for women. He also popularized tight pants, the
trapeze dress, smocks, thigh-high boots and tuxedo jackets. Saint
Laurent often used ethnic themes in his designs, as well as bright
colors contrasted with black.

His jackets, "le Smoking" in French, featured for the first time on the
catwalk see-through shirts that shocked and delighted the public.

In a 2002 interview with CNN, London-based fashion designer Ben de Lisi
called Saint Laurent an inspiration for a whole new generation of
designers.

 "Way back in the '60s, he was doing, for couture, crocodile biker
jackets based on Marlon Brando. He was doing alligator trousers. And
that was just unheard of," De Lisi said.

Saint Laurent introduced his "Ligne Trapeze" after Dior's death, when
he became chief designer at Dior. He left Dior in 1961 and opened his
own couture house, financed by Berge, in 1962.

In 1969, Saint Laurent pioneered designer men's wear, with media stars
such as Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Andy Warhol in mind. Out went the
pinstripes -- in came fashion modern men wanted to wear.

 Vogue magazine editor Diana Vreeland mounted a retrospective of Saint
Laurent's work in 1983 at the Museum of Metropolitan Art in New York,
the first time a living fashion designer had been so honored.

But after 40 years in the business, Saint Laurent, increasingly dogged
by ill health, was slowing down. He retired in 2002. Some critics said
his work was becoming repetitious.

In 1999, he sold the rights to the YSL brand to Gucci for $70 million,
retaining control of Sanofi Beaute.

Saint Laurent was born August 1, 1936, in Oran, Algeria. After winning
first prize in the International Wool Secretariat contest for his
asymetrical cocktail dress in 1954, he went to work for Dior.

Berge said the designer was intensely shy.
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"Like all creators, he had two faces -- a public face and a private
face. The public face, everyone knows about it. And the private face,
people know it less," Berge told the radio station.

"He was shy, introverted ... had very few friends. He was hiding from
the world, and was seeing very few people."

Many thanks to TheLenGuy for posting this obituary