1980s Yves Saint Laurent Silk Midi Skirt
View Similar Items
1980s Yves Saint Laurent Silk Midi Skirt
About the Item
- Designer:
- Brand:
- Dimensions:Height: 21.66 in (55 cm)Marked Size: 42 (EU)Waist: 13.39 in (34 cm)Hip: 19.3 in (49 cm)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Seller Location:Lugo (RA), IT
- Reference Number:Seller: B20611stDibs: LU602310769692
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.
- Victorian White Organic Cotton 1870S-80S Trained Petticoat For A Bustle SkirtLocated in New York, NYThis would work great as a skirt worn with a victorian blouse for a bohemian summer wedding. Center Front Length Measures 37". Drawstrings allow for ...Category
Early 1900s A-Line Skirts
- Victorian White Organic Cotton Skirt With Cherry LaceLocated in New York, NYAdjustable waist Victorian White Organic Cotton Skirt With Cherry LaceCategory
Early 1900s A-Line Skirts
- Mid 2000s Chloé Pearl White Ruffled SkirtBy ChloéLocated in London, GBA Chloé pearl white skirt from the mid-2000s adorned in tiered ruffles from the hip down. The skirt is mid-thigh length fastened with a zip along the centr...Category
21st Century and Contemporary French Ruffled Skirts
- 1990s Thierry Mugler White Handkerchief Hem Asymmetrical Vintage 90s Maxi SkirtBy Thierry MuglerLocated in San Diego, CAStriking vintage early 90s THIERRY MUGLER white handkerchief hem maxi skirt! Features an asymmetrical hem that looks fantastic with movement! Hidden...Category
1990s Italian Dip Hem Skirts
- NWT Michael Kors Collection Size 4 Brown + Ivory Zebra Print Linen Mini SkirtBy Michael KorsLocated in San Diego, CANew with tags early 2000s MICHAEL KORS COLLECTION chocolate brown and ivory zebra print linen mini skirt! Mid to low rise fit, with soft Irish linen of the finest quality. Hidden zip...Category
Early 2000s Italian Pencil Skirts
- Pre-Fall 2009 Oscar de la Renta Brown & Cream Wool Mohair Alpaca Tweed SkirtBy Oscar De La RentaLocated in Portland, ORThis is a lovely Oscar de la Renta Brown and Cream Tweed Skirt with a pretty attached panel ruffle from his Pre-Fall 2009 collection. It has a nice fit, and the ruffle causes movemen...Category
Early 2000s Italian Skirts