Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche Safari Skirt
View Similar Items
Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche Safari Skirt
About the Item
- Designer:
- Brand:
- Dimensions:Length: 31 in (78.74 cm)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use. No side seam pockets.
- Seller Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU4615388032
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.
- Yves Saint Laurent Fibranne Skirt, Rive GaucheBy Yves Saint Laurent Rive GaucheLocated in New York, NYYves Saint Laurent Fibranne Skirt, Rive Gauche in black rayon linen blend from the 1980's. Full gathers in front with less on back with button front entry. Classic timeless, 1980's F...Category
1980s French Skirts
- Chanel Wool Twill Trumpet SkirtBy Karl Lagerfeld for ChanelLocated in New York, NYChanel Soft Deep Black Wool Twill Fit and Flare Trumpet Skirt from the 1990's. Pieced with a hip yoke and 3 panel front and back which release to fullnes...Category
1990s French Flare Skirts
- Cacharel Wool Twill Pleated A Line SkirtBy CacharelLocated in New York, NYCacharel Black Wool Twill Pleated A Line Skirt from the 1970's. Great cut and detailing with cool angled panels and pockets. Panels release into double pleats on front and back. Side...Category
1970s French A-Line Skirts
- Cacharel Wool Twill A Line SkirtBy CacharelLocated in New York, NYCharming Cacharel Wool Twill A Line Skirt from the 1970's. Burgundy wool twill bias cut A line shape with pockets and shaped waistband. Fuller cut in back with ...Category
1970s French A-Line Skirts
- Christian Dior Haute Couture Matrix Collection Skirt Automne Hiver 1999-2000By John Galliano, Christian DiorLocated in New York, NYUnique waxed cotton and leather "skirt" by John Galliano for Christian Dior Haute Couture. The collection from which this "skirt" derives from was presented at Versailles. Guests were transported from the Ave. Montaigne store to Versailles on a perfect summer day via Dior Shuttles which felt like a fashion camping trip. Upon arriving, guests (ourselves included) were ushered into one of the many massive mirrored halls with an mile long undulating podium covered in slick white laminate. Tiny french ballroom...Category
Late 20th Century French Skirts
- Vintage Swarovski Decorated KiltLocated in New York, NYVintage wool pleated kilt decorated with bezel set Swarovski crystals along the hips. Button front wrap closure. Upcycled and made for a Japan Vogue Shoot x MWLC Studios. 28" waist...Category
1990s American Pleated Skirts
- Giorgio Armani Black Rayon Crepe Skirt Size EU40 / US 6By Giorgio Armani Le CollezioniLocated in New York, NYGiorgio Armani Le Collezioni flirty little black skirt with draped open front that flows from fitted waistband. Fabric is a soft rayon ble...Category
1990s Italian Skirts
- Joseph Belted Sash Black Skirt Size UK LBy JosephLocated in New York, NYThis is a skirt full of delightful surprises. It moves with you. Hidden slits and flaps, wrapped belted waist gives a variety of options for styling. The long sash belt allows for...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Bulgarian Skirts
$500 Sale Price28% Off - Yves Saint Laurent by Tom Ford FW-2003 Higher Waist Skirt with Belt DetailingBy Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, Tom Ford for Yves Saint LaurentLocated in Brussels, BEThis is reinterpretation of the infamous Tom Ford pencil skirt, with a nod to the elegance of the 1940s. Saint Laurent’s Spring/Summer 1971 Haute Couture collection channeled the loo...Category
Early 2000s Italian Pencil Skirts
- John Galliano SS-2011 Wool Ruffled Hem Knee Length SkirtBy John GallianoLocated in Brussels, BEThe genius of John Galliano was his ability to make even the most traditional shapes alluring and seductive, adding his own personal twist to classical dressing. This stylish knee le...Category
2010s French Skirts
- Yves Saint Laurent by Tom Ford SS-02 Cotton Laced Safari Skirt with Leopard TrimBy Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent, Yves Saint Laurent Rive GaucheLocated in Brussels, BEThe sexy pencil skirt was a piece that Carine Roitfeld, Tom Ford’s longtime stylist and former Vogue Paris editor-in-chief, made quite popular in the early noughties. Roitfeld was obsessed with the rigor and discipline of uniforms, but she kept looking for ways to add eroticism to strictly tailored clothes. This military-inspired skirt -with its sensual trim of leopard print chiffon- was an obvious choice for her and hasn’t lost any of its relevance. This is a version of skirt Look 2 as seen on the runway spring/summer 2002, ready-to-wear, model Rie Rasmussen 100% cotton in brown Leopard trim...Category
Early 2000s Italian Pencil Skirts
- Comme des Garçons Skirt AD 2003By Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe Comme des GarçonsLocated in Berlin, BEFabulous pleated maxi skirt from Junya Watanabe for Comme des CDG AD 2003 Collection. Punk style, tattoo print. Size M.Category
Early 2000s Japanese Pleated Skirts