Yves Saint Laurent has died, age 71, at home in Paris. The cause of death has not been released.

He was born on August 1st 1936 to a lawyer father and housewife mother, and had two sisters. They were three of the best dressed women on earth.

He first rose to fashion prominence when Christian Dior died and he replaced him as head of the fashion house in 1957, until he was drafted for military service in September 1960. By November he had suffered a nervous collapse and was discharged, but did not return to working for Dior. He sued for failure to reinstate him as the head designer and failure to provide severence pay, and used the money from this settlement to start his own fashion house, named Yves Saint Laurent.

He announced the creation of the YSL brand in September 1961, with his lover Mr Pierre Bergé. They remained lifelong business partners, but split romantically in 1980.

Yves Saint Laurent was responsible, many believe, for it to be acceptable for women to wear pants, saying notably “My small job as a couturier is to make clothes that reflect our times. I’m convinced women want to wear pants.”

He was also a champion of the capsule wardrobe, encouraging women to buy classic pieces and not slavishly follow fashion. “A woman’s wardrobe shouldn’t change every six months. You should be able to use the pieces you already own and add to them. Because they are like timeless classics.”

he was also the first designer to use black models, and to popularize ready-to-wear clothing lines.

Yves Saint Laurent had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, and suffered from depression. He retired from the fashion house in 2002, citing health reasons, but the brand still survives through Gucci.

Biography from Wiki and New York Times

from celebitchy.com

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