EARLY LIFE
Yves Henri Donat Matthieu Saint Laurent was an Algerian-French fashion designer who was, and still is, one of the greatest and most celebrated icons of the fashion industry. Saint Laurent was born in Oran, French Algeria in 1936 to Charles Mathieu-Saint-Laurent and Lucienne Andrée Mathieu-Saint-Laurent. Yves grew up in a villa by the Mediterranean with his parents and two younger sisters, Michelle and Brigette. While his family was well off, childhood for the future fashion icon was not easy. In fact, Yves was not popular in high-school, and was often bullied by schoolmates for appearing homosexual. As a result, Yves was a very nervous and shy kid growing up.
Yves 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. A year later, Saint Laurent, who had impressed de Brunhoff with his drawings, moved to Paris and enrolled at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, where his designs quickly gained notice. De Brunhoff introduced Saint Laurent to a desginer Christian Dior, a giant in the fashion world. "Dior fascinated me," Saint Laurent recalled. "I couldnt speak in front of him. He taught me the basis of my art. Whatever was to happen next, I never forgot the years I spent at his side." Under Diors management, Saint Laurents style continued to mature and gain still more notice.
In August 1957, Dior met with Saint Laurent's mother to tell her that he had chosen Saint Laurent to succeed him as designer. His mother later said that she had been confused by the remark, as Dior was only 52 years old at the time. Both she and her son were surprised when in October of that year Dior died at a health spa in northern Italy of a massive heart attack.
In 1957, Saint Laurent found himself at age 21 the head designer of the House of Dior. His spring 1958 collection almost certainly saved the enterprise from financial ruin; the straight line of his creations, a softer version of Dior's New Look, catapulted him to international stardom with what would later be known as the "trapeze dress." Others included in the collection were dresses with a narrow shoulder and flared gently at the bottom. At this time, he shortened his surname to Saint Laurent because the international press found his hyphenated triple name difficult to spell.