From Art to High Fashion, The Man Who Created It All
Have you ever worn a female tuxedo, safari jacket, pea coat, pantsuit, trench coat or black tights? Then you have rocked a high fashion look! All those clothing items were created by one extraordinary designer, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL). Yves Saint Laurent pioneered so many essential clothing items we wear today. But wearable everyday clothes are not what YSL is most famous for. He is better known for his haute couture designs. The Mondrian dresses and the African collection are a few of his most distinguished couture collections. Within the designs of his clothes, his influences can easily be identified. Yves Saint Laurent had a few major inspirations, but there is one stands out amongst the rest which is his love for the arts. The greatest influence came from paintings by artists Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol. Saint Laurent’s love for paintings is what inspired one of his most iconic designs, the Mondrian dress collection.
The Mondrain dresses were inspired by the abstract, geometric paintings of the Dutch Artist Piet Mondrian. Saint Laurent loved artwork and found ways to incorporate paintings into his couture collections. The use of Piet Mondrian’s painting was the first of many artists Saint Laurent used as inspiration. YSL incorporated Piet Mondrian’s painting into his dress design by using the same color palate and a similar geometric pattern. Each of the six Mondrian dresses varied slightly but they all had the same premise. The six Mondrian dresses in total were all the same model, “a sleeveless knee-length shift dress with a round neck, falling straight from the bust so that it conceals the curves of the female body.” (Reij 3). The picture above illustrates this concept and clearly shows the inspiration for the design. When YSL debuted the Mondrian dresses, it launched him into fame in the high fashion world.
The incorporation of Piet Mondrian’s paintings by Saint Laurent created a huge change in the fashion world. The Mondrian dresses were a part of YSL’s 1965 summer collection. During the 60s, the rebellious youth were struggling to find a new identity. The 60s youth lived in a prosperous, post World War II society where there was plenty of money to go around. Never had so many people had money to spend, let alone spend their earnings on high fashion couture. The youth of the 60s were drawn to the illusion of a wearable painting (can be seen at 9:30–10:45) that Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dresses gave off. The illusion of wearable art quickly became the starting point for the identity of 60s youth. Soon after YSL’s, 1965 summer collection was debuted, millions of Mondrian dresses were sold. Saint Laurent’s use of artwork would not stop with Piet Mondrian; he fused other artists paintings with dresses later in his career.
The influence of artwork can be seen in several other haute couture collections by Yves Saint Laurent. The buzz the Mondrian dresses generated gave Saint Laurent the assurance to create similar lines of clothing. In 1966 YSL produced a range of dresses that were inspired by Andy Warhol’s Pop Art. Then again in the 1980s, YSL designed a series of dresses based on the paintings of Pablo Picasso. It was clear the YSL had a love for art, he used many different styles of artwork as inspiration for his haute couture collections.
Over the years as Saint Laurent continued to design more clothes, the number of his inspirations continued to grow. Art remained one of his core inspirations through his whole career. The newfound fame the Mondrian dresses gave YSL pushed him to create even more daring designs, so he could stay atop of the fashion industry. By the end of his career, Saint Laurent had become the king of haute couture and he left a legacy behind. The Mondrian dresses proved to be his starting point and is still regarded as one of the most iconic collections designed by YSL. It is hard to believe that YSL went on to create so many of our everyday clothes such as the female tuxedo, safari jacket, pea coat, pantsuit, trench coat and black tights. All these pieces of clothing have a unique inspiration behind them. Next time you pull one of these clothing pieces out of your closet, stop and think about Yves Saint Laurent and what inspired him to create it.
Works Cited
Fraser-Cavassoni, Natasha. Vogue on: Yves Saint Laurent. Quadrille, 2015.
Reij, Frederique Van. “Wearing Mondrian Yves Saint Laurent’s Translation from High Art to Haute Couture.” The Rijksmuseum Bulletin, JSTORE, 1 Jan. 2012, www.jstor.org/stable/23646887.
“Yves Saint Laurent Full Show Spring Summer 2002 Haute Couture Paris.” Yves Saint Laurent Full Show Spring Summer 2002 Haute Couture Paris, Fashion Channel, 13 June 2016, https://youtu.be/ZPzXJN1paXI
