Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche Cocktail Napkins
About the Item
- Designer:
- Brand:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU4615220922
Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche
Visionary French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent was the first to launch a ready-to-wear label, YSL Rive Gauche Prêt-à-Porter. The inaugural Rive Gauche boutique — a modern shop in Paris’s bustling, bohemian Left Bank district — offered stylish garments and accessories that were intended to be affordable for a younger generation of fashion enthusiasts. The store featured Mies van der Rohe chairs and played host to actor Catherine Deneuve during its grand opening.
Saint Laurent pioneered “cross-design” in fashion, taking inspiration from street trends to modernize haute couture. He was the first couturier to open boutiques for both men and women. Using traditional menswear fabrics and designs for women, he also literally cross-dressed, giving men and women alike chic pant suits, elegant tuxedo jackets and urban safari gear. By blurring gender-specific design, he empowered individual style while creating a scissor-sharp fashion aesthetic of sensual ease and beauty. Many of his designs are today considered timeless classics. Saint Laurent also consistently used Black models, like Mounia, Iman and Naomi Campbell, and he drew endless inspiration from different ethnicities and cultures, in no small part because of his Algerian roots.
Born to French parents in Oran, Algeria, in 1936, Saint Laurent went to Paris at age 17 to study fashion at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Just two years later, in 1955, his remarkable sketches were shown to Christian Dior, then the world’s reigning couturier, who hired him immediately.
Surprisingly soon thereafter, Dior publicly chose Saint Laurent as his successor, which sadly proved prescient when the fashion legend died unexpectedly, in 1957. A mere slip of a youth, the 21-year-old Saint Laurent was nevertheless up to the challenge. He shook the traditional couture clientele to its core with youthful silhouettes and styles like the A-line trapeze dress that hung with seeming effortlessness from the shoulders, the antithesis of the pinched waists and molded skirts that had been all the rage after the deprivations of World War II.
After a mandated spell in the torturous French military, Saint Laurent suffered a nervous breakdown and was dismissed by Dior in 1962. Out of the ashes rose the Age of Yves. With Pierre Bergé, his then-lover who became his lifelong business partner and friend, the designer founded Yves Saint Laurent YSL to encompass prêt-à-porter, or ready-to-wear. In 1966, they opened the first YSL Rive Gauche women’s boutique in Paris — Rive Gauche is French for “left bank” — followed soon thereafter by YSL Rive Gauche for men. Ready-to-wear materialized during a period of dynamic transformation and experimentation and came to dominate the Paris fashion scene. Saint Laurent had given birth to a global brand.
His revolutionary Mondrian mini dress from 1965 is a core element of his fashion biography. It is a prime example of how Saint Laurent, an avid art lover and collector, looked to painters, from Goya to Picasso, Ingres to Matisse, for inspiration.
With its pure lines and hues, Mondrian’s ground-breaking 1935 color-block painting Composition C transmutes beautifully into a dress that is highly valued by collectors of contemporary fashion and widely copied commercially to this day. The design is the epitome of Saint Laurent’s aesthetic, requiring a meticulous hand piecing of each color block so that, despite the body’s curves, the visual plane is as flat as a canvas when the garment is worn. Mondrian’s purity met its match in Saint Laurent.
“I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style,” Saint Laurent said four years before retiring, in 2002. After a long period of ill health, he died at his home in Paris on June 1, 2008.
The vintage YSL Rive Gauche clothing for sale on 1stDibs includes evening dresses and gowns, jackets, shoes, handbags and other items.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Riverdale, NY
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
- Pair of Gainsborough Appenzell Runners, Maidens and DevilsLocated in New York, NYPair of Gorgeous Edwardian Hand Embroidered Gainsborough inspired Appenzell Table Runners of Maidens and Devils. The ladies posing in portraiture are embroidered in open work cartou...Category
Early 1900s American Textiles and Quilts
- Art Deco Textile, The New Yorker HotelLocated in New York, NYArt Deco Textile from The New Yorker Hotel which was probably a souvenir in the period. Great graphics suitable for framing now. 1930's USA. 16" x 15" on cotton bark cloth.Category
1930s American Textiles and Quilts
- Victorian Novelty Office Pencil-PendantLocated in New York, NYCharming Victorian Novelty Pencil designed for office use in the late 19th and early 20th Century. Glass cabochons (4) are each color coded to a different pencil color. To release, guide the cabochon down track to reveal the color needed. Creative design which made office life easier over a hundred years ago, with the added convenience of hanging off a necklace chain or waist chain...Category
1890s American Curiosities
- Bohemian Art Deco Perfume Suite by Karl PaldaLocated in New York, NYKarl Palda Art Deco crystal vanity suite, circa 1925. Both decorated with acid etched frosted squares with red and black Modrianesque motifs. Cons...Category
1920s Czech For The Table
- Stephen Sprouse Day Glo Tweed TextilesBy Stephen SprouseLocated in New York, NYStephen Sprouse Day Glo Tweed Textiles in a silk/wool blend likely made by Italian mill Agnona. Part of a group of textiles sold post collection in the 1980's....Category
1980s American Textiles and Quilts
- Art Deco Embroidered Panel, WatteauLocated in New York, NYArt Deco Embroidered and appliqued mat. Watteau subject matter on fine cotton batiste of a lone Pierrot on a hill rendered in vari colored cotton ba...Category
1920s French Textiles and Quilts
- A Rare Buratto embroidered velvet Tablecloth - Italy Early 18cLocated in Toulon, FRLate 17c, early 18c for the embroidery 19c for the velvet tablecloth Italy Rare tablecloth in green-yellow silk velvet cut (XIXth century) with wide...Category
Early 18th Century Italian For The Table
- A French needle point "Bonne-grâce" from a Louis XIV bed set - Late 17th centuryLocated in Toulon, FRCirca 1700 France "Bonne-grâce" (We call "Bonne-grâce" the half-curtains of a bed that are on both sides of the bedside) of a Louis XIV bed in needle point embroidered dating from t...Category
Early 1700s French Textiles and Quilts
- Vintage Ethnic Moroccan Wedding Berber ShawlLocated in North Hollywood, CALarge vintage original tribal Moroccan white and silver wedding Berber women shawl, blanket. The Zaiane ethnic shawls incorporate quantities of sequins i...Category
20th Century Moroccan Textiles and Quilts
- Vintage Hermès Pink Parrots Beach TowelBy HermèsLocated in Bilbao, ES1990's Vintage Hermès Beach Towel 100% cotton Fair Condition Measure: 150x90 cm or 59x35 inches Paris, Made In France Since 1984, when ...Category
1980s French Textiles and Quilts
- CHANEL White and Neon Pink Bath Towel in CottonBy ChanelLocated in Paris, FRBrand new! This CHANEL beach towel is in white terry cloth woven with silver threads and fluorescent pink bands. It is made of 97% cotton and 3% polyester. This lovely Chanel beach towel in white and neon pink cotton is completely new. Made in Italy. Brand Label present. The dimensions of this bath towel is 172 x 124 cm The Chanel bath towel...Category
2010s Italian Textiles and Quilts
- HERMES white & blue linen & cotton CHAINE D'ANCRE Place Mates SET of 10By HermèsLocated in Zürich, CH100% authentic Hermès 10 Chaine D'Ancre placemates in white linen and cotton. Have been used and are in virtually new condition. Measurements Height 40cm (...Category
2010s French For The Table