Giancarlo Botti

'Private Dancer' Brigitte Bardot 20th century black and white photography

1961

Yves Henri Donat Matthieu Saint Laurent was born on August 1, 1936, in Oran, Algeria, to Charles and Lucienne Andrée Mathieu-Saint-Laurent. He grew up in a villa by the Mediterranean with his two younger sisters, Michelle and Brigitte. While his family was relatively well off—his father was a lawyer and insurance broker who owned a chain of cinemas—childhood for the future fashion icon was not easy. Saint Laurent was not popular in school and was often bullied by schoolmates for appearing to be homosexual. As a consequence, Saint Laurent was a nervous child and sick nearly every day. He found solace, however, in the world of fashion. He liked to create intricate paper dolls and by his early teen years, he was designing dresses for his mother and sisters. At the age of 17, a whole new world opened up to Saint Laurent when his mother took him to Paris for a meeting she'd arranged with Michael de Brunhoff, the editor of French Vogue.