Books About Yves Saint Laurent
Book Roundup - Books About Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent was a French fashion designer whose contributions to the industry are still celebrated today. Born in Algeria in 1936, he moved to Paris at the age of 17 to pursue his passion for fashion. He quickly rose to fame in the 1960s with his innovative designs, including the iconic Le Smoking tuxedo suit for women. Throughout his career, Saint Laurent continued to push boundaries and challenge traditional gender norms in fashion. He also played an important role in bringing haute couture to mainstream audiences. Saint Laurent passed away in 2008, but his legacy lives on through his eponymous fashion house, which continues to create bold and elegant designs for fashion-forward individuals.
Yves Saint Laurent's Ballets Russes collection, which debuted in 1976, was a masterpiece of fashion and art. Inspired by the famous Russian ballet company of the early 20th century, the collection featured vibrant colors, intricate embroidery, and flowing fabrics that captured the elegance and grace of the ballet. From the bold reds and golds of the "Firebird" costume to the delicate pastels of the "Swan Lake" tutu, each piece was a work of art in its own right. The collection was widely praised for its innovation and creativity, cementing Saint Laurent's place as one of the greatest fashion designers of all time.
In 1988, Yves Saint Laurent paid tribute to the legendary artist Vincent van Gogh with his famous collection, "The Van Gogh Collection." The collection was inspired by the vibrant colors and textures of Van Gogh's paintings, and it was a true celebration of the artist's work. Yves Saint Laurent incorporated some of Van Gogh's most iconic motifs, such as sunflowers and starry nights, into his designs, creating a collection that was both beautiful and meaningful. The Van Gogh Collection remains one of the most celebrated fashion collections of all time, and a testament to the enduring influence of Vincent van Gogh's art on the world of fashion and beyond.
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The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Berge
The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Berge
by Ivan Terestchenko (Photographer) and Robert Murphy
One of the most talented and influential couturiers of his time, Yves Saint Laurent began his career as Christian Dior’s protégé and went on to become a legendary arbiter of twentieth-century style. Saint Laurent’s extraordinary taste went well beyond the world of fashion, and in this lavish volume, the eight splendid homes he shared with friend and lifelong business partner Pierre Bergé are presented in immaculate detail. Notoriously shy, the designer and Bergé lived in luxury, surrounded by incomparable collections of furniture and art. From the serene interiors of their apartment on the Rue Babylone to the incandescent beauty of the Villa Majorelle in Marrakech, Bergé and Saint Laurent’s sensibilities come alive. Taken after Saint Laurent’s death in 2008, Ivan Terestchenko’s photographs capture these exquisite surroundings in full, showcasing nineteenth-century French décor, important paintings by modern and Romantic artists, and masterpieces of furniture, sculpture, and silver ranging from the Renaissance to the Art Deco era. Though the homes presented here are now empty, The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé is a testament to a rare union of passion, elegance, and supreme connoisseurship.
Yves Saint Laurent: A Biography
Yves Saint Laurent: A Biography
by Laurence Benaim
Yves Saint Laurent's impact on fashion is legendary, yet he remains an enigmatic and compelling figure. Tracing the development of Saint Laurent's visionary work through his charmed yet tumultuous life, respected fashion writer Laurence Benaïm's newly translated and updated biography of the famed designer explores how this unassuming prodigy became a legendary, celebrated public icon who changed the face of fashion, style, and celebrity.
Enriched by the author's exclusive interviews--from Saint Laurent's partner Pierre Bergé to family members, his atelier staff, and muses such as Catherine Deneueve, LouLou de la Falaise, and Paloma Picasso--this fascinating biography chronicles early glimpses of Saint Laurent's talent in Oran and his star trajectory, from leading the House of Dior at the age of twenty-one to his fall from grace and subsequent forging with Pierre Bergé, fashion's most enduring and successful professional partnership. In portraying the man behind the timeless icons of the Mondrian-print shift dress and the Le Smoking trouser suit--who partied with Warhol in New York and relaxed with the jet set in his Marrakesh hideaway--Benaïm powerfully illuminates both the glittering world of haute couture and the business empire that revolutionized the fashion industry.
Yves Saint Laurent: Icons of Fashion Design & Photography
Yves Saint Laurent: Icons of Fashion Design & Photography
by Marguerite Duras
Yves Saint Laurent: Icons of Fashion Design & Photography is a gorgeous homage to the uncrowned king of haute couture. Originally published in 1988, the book traces the success of Saint Laurent’s haute couture and ready-to-wear designs from 1962 to 1988 through the lens of the world’s leading fashion photographers, including Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, William Klein, and more. Inside, 135 photographs document Saint Laurent’s groundbreaking designs worn by the most beautiful women of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s: Audrey Hepburn, Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Mounia, and Veruschka. Saint Laurent was equipped with an infallible instinct for reading the aesthetic signs of the times, and this enabled him to have a profound effect on fashion. With an introduction by Marguerite Duras, this classic volume documents Saint Laurent’s ever-evolving artistry and the combined efforts of the world’s most talented fashion photographers, and is as beautiful and rewarding as one of Saint Laurent’s creations.
Loulou & Yves: The Untold Story of Loulou de La Falaise and the House of Saint Laurent
Loulou & Yves: The Untold Story of Loulou de La Falaise and the House of Saint Laurent
by Christopher Petkanas
Dauntless, “in the bone” style made Loulou de La Falaise one of the great fashion firebrands of the twentieth century. Descending in a direct line from Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, she was celebrated at her death in 2011, aged just sixty-four, as the “highest of haute bohemia,” a feckless adventuress in the art of living―and the one person Yves Saint Laurent could not live without.
Yves was the most influential designer of his times; possibly also the most neurasthenic. In an exquisitely intimate, sometimes painful personal and professional relationship, Loulou was his creative right hand, muse, alter ego and the virtuoso behind all the flamboyant accessories that were a crucial component of the YSL “look.” For thirty years, until his retirement in 2002, Yves relied on Loulou to inspire him, make him laugh and talk him off the ledge―the enchanted formula that brought him from one historic collection to the next.
Yves’s many tributes shape Loulou’s memory, as if everything there was to know about this fugitive, Giacometti-like figure could be told by her clanking bronze cuffs, towering fur toques, the turquoise boulders on her fingers and her working friendship with the man who put women in pants. But another, darker story lifts the veil on Loulou, a classic “number two” with a contempt for convention, and exposes the underbelly of fashion at its highest level. Behind Yves’s encomiums are a pair of aristocrat parents―Loulou’s shiftless French father and menacingly chic English mother―who abandoned her to a childhood of foster care and sexual abuse; Loulou’s recurring desperation to leave Yves and go out on her own; and the grandiose myths surrounding her family. Loulou felt that her life had been kidnapped by the operatic workings of the House of Saint Laurent, and in her last years faced financial ruin. Loulou & Yves unspools an elusive fashion idol―nymphomaniacal, heedless and up to her bracelets in coke and Boizel champagne―at the core of what used to be called “le beau monde.”
Yves Saint Laurent: The Scandal Collection, 1971
Yves Saint Laurent: The Scandal Collection, 1971
by Olivier Saillard and Dominique Veillon
On January 21, 1971, couturier Yves Saint Laurent presented his Spring-Summer haute couture collection. Inspired by the garments of the war years, the collection included short dresses, platform shoes, square shoulders, and exaggerated makeup. The show caused an outrage among the public, the critics, and the press alike, earning it the title of “Paris’s ugliest collection.” Nevertheless, the haute couture designs of the runway made their way to the boulevards, giving full sway to the “retro” trend that quickly conquered the streets.
Yves Saint Laurent: The Scandal Collection, 1971 offers a behind-the-scenes look at the influential collection that “drew fire in the fashion world”—from the collection’s inspiration to the press coverage that followed. Beautifully illustrated and documented with well-researched essays, this book is enriched with personal interviews and archival photographs of the show, the models, the designs, and the textile and print samples, as well as sketches and international press clippings.
All About Yves
All About Yves
by Catherine Ormen
Yves Saint Laurent is one of the world's most famous designers, who's haute couture collections have deeply marked society and revolutionized the image of women. All About Yves documents the life of this great designer, from his childhood, to the seminal moments of his career, up until his death in 2008.
This one-of-a-kind book includes unseen sketches and photographs of Saint Laurent's key collections, as well as fascinating removable documents that include handwritten letters, paper dolls, contact sheets, magazines, and invitations.
All About Yves was compiled in collaboration with the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent and is essential reading for those with a passion for YSL.
