1980s Yves Saint Laurent Attributed Patchwork Soft Hat
View Similar Items
1980s Yves Saint Laurent Attributed Patchwork Soft Hat
About the Item
- Designer:
- Brand:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Seller Location:Rockwood, CA
- Reference Number:Seller: Item# A3081stDibs: LU1282115303
Yves Saint Laurent
French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent pioneered “cross-design” in fashion, taking inspiration from street trends to modernize haute couture.
Saint Laurent was the first to launch a ready-to-wear label, YSL Rive Gauche Prêt-à-Porter. He was the first couturier to open boutiques for both men and women. Using traditional menswear fabrics and designs for women, Saint Laurent 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, followed soon thereafter by YSL Rive Gauche for men. 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.
Browse an extraordinary collection of vintage Yves Saint Laurent evening dresses, shirts, handbags and other clothing and accessories today on 1stDibs.
- 1990s Gianni Versace Black and White Houndstooth Flat CapBy Gianni VersaceLocated in London, GBGianni Versace Black and White Houndstooth flat cap, 100% wool. Made in Italy A timeless addition to any outfit, this classic Gianni Versace flat cap exudes...Category
1990s Italian Hats
$704 Sale Price29% Off - Chanel Black Quilted Coco Neige Trapper Hat MBy ChanelLocated in Dubai, Al Qouz 2Chanel offers a fashionable addition to your style repertoire with this coco neige trapper hat. It is covered in the diamond quilt and finished with a signature patch on the front.Category
2010s Italian Hats
- Balenciaga black silk and mesh hat with floral embellishment, c. 1960By BalenciagaLocated in London, GB- Balenciaga silk and mesh hat designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga - Sheer net top surrounded by layers of black silk - Gathered by black silk floral embellish...Category
1960s French Hats
- Original 1960s Vintage Black Pill Box Velvet & Feather Veiled HatLocated in Chillerton, Isle of WightOriginal 1960s Vintage Black Pill Box Velvet & Feather Veiled Hat Pill Box Hat made in soft 100% cotton velvet, trimmed with Ostrich feathers and veil for ...Category
1960s English Hats
- Barbisio Italian Vintage Black HatLocated in Milano, ITElegant Vintage Women's Hat of the Italian manufacture Barbisio, 1950s. The hat has an original label inside the hat. Superior quality. The hat is lined with shaved hare felt, silk belt, satin lining. Size 57 numbered 5. The hat is the perfect object to complete your vintage style outfit.Category
1950s Italian Hats
$133 Sale Price20% Off - Vintage Brown Fabric HatLocated in Milano, ITFine Italian-made brown fabric hat from the 1990s. The hat is made entirely of cloth. The dome bears 4 soft pinches. At the outer base of the dome is a sh...Category
1990s Italian Hats
Recently Viewed
View AllRead More
How to Spot a Fake YSL Bag
Counterfeiters know that savvy fashionistas cherish YSL bags. Learn how to tell if yours is the real deal. Of course, you don't have to worry about that on 1stDibs, where every seller is highly vetted.
Quiet Luxury May Be Trending, but These Famous Interiors Prove That Quality and Quirk Endure
Because truly timeless design requires personal vision, transcendent taste, real fortitude and top-notch objects, even if the wider world hasn’t caught on yet.