PARIS, June 2, 2008 /FR/— Yves Saint Laurent has died last night at 11:10 p.m. Paris time. One of the greatest fashion designers ever has passed away six years after his last “historical” Haute Couture runway show, and the world of fashion worldwide is in mourning.

The couturier who is famous for having adapted and proposed a new elegance to women with his female tuxedos was a true genius of French 20th century fashion. Innumerable images come to the mind of the fashion observer : his “caban” a navy blue double-breasted woollen short coat which the designer had set as the new trend for womenswear as early as 1966; the “saharienne” with which he launched his ready-to-wear line, a transformed version of a beige colonial desert outfit which celebrated the new freedom and power of women in the sixties, probably a reminiscence of his childhood years in Algeria; the master couturier’s famous muslin blouses, where the shoulder line is so important and which invariably creates an extremely sensual look on an otherwise naked bust which looks as if wrapped in sheer silk tied by a wide soft knot around the neck to underline the charming softness of women’s delicate weapons.

The designer who had succeeded in accompanying -some would even say provoking - the evolution of women in society, the peer of elder French mythic fashion designers Christian Dior whom Yves Saint Laurent had succeeded after his death, Gabrielle »Coco” Chanel who had marked forever the first half of the 20th century, just like Yves Saint Laurent has marked the second half of it with exquisite and pertinent innovations.
With the event of Yves Saint Laurent’s death, a major page is turned in the history of Haute Couture and fashion design, and I cannot help but pride myself of having met this genius inside his fashion house, observed his talent at some fittings, spied on his emotions backstage during his runway shows.

Most of all, I am so happy that I could discreetly prepare a real surprise for Yves Saint Laurent which has since become a visual landmark in the pantheon of this designer’s mythic gallery. Let me explain when the recapitulation n runway show took place at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris for the Haute Couture season of spring-summer 2002, back in January the same year, I was the manager of Yves Saint-Laurent’s present muse, Laetitia Casta, who had been his bride in his latest Haute Couture shows.

Everything had to be exceptional for this show… and with Nicole Dorier, the House’s casting director for models and stylist of many shows after she had been a model walking the runway for Haute Couture, we built the idea of a surprise coming from the House’s personnel. A real surprise which neither Mr. Saint Laurent, nor Mr. Pierre Bergé - the designer’s personal and business partner, the House’s CEO - would know about. I had the idea of asking Catherine Deneuve, Mr. Saint-Laurent’s “historic” muse and Laetitia Casta, his present face for Haute Couture, to come on the runway from the front row and sing a very moving song, initially interpreted by French singer Barbara “Ma plus belle Histoire d’Amour, c’est vous”, which translates into English with “You are my most Beautiful Love Story”.
Both Laetitia and Catherine accepted at once, we had rehearsals; we have even recorded their sound in a studio with the greatest care and in complete secrecy, just in case this unplanned surprise and their emotion at the moment of performing would prevent them of offering them their song.

It happened, they sang when Yves Saint Laurent was taking his bow, stood at his side surrounded by all the models in the show, while the audience was giving him a last standing ovation on the runway. Everyone, including the muses, the models and Mr. Saint Laurent himself was wearing black tuxedos in this finale, which was giving a glamorous vision picture of mourning. From then on, there would be no more Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture runway show, Haute Couture would never be the same, and its most prominent embodiment was leaving the stage. A glorious farewell with the colours of a funeral…

Last night, surprisingly, while Yves Saint Laurent was dying, together with Julien Fournié - one of the latest young talents in French fashion design and our illustrator here at Fashion Reporters - we had been invited at Nicole Dorier’s house for a small informal dinner party… We were sharing once more memories about the YSL Haute Couture, the House, the models, and the future of fashion.
Nicole Dorier, who has been inside the house of Saint-Laurent and then the museum, for 30 years has written a book, a very moving book about to be published ( in French first, but for sure the English version should come too). I cannot resist but give you here a translated excerpt, before anybody publishes it.

“We were his army of angels, his musketeers in skirts and lipstick, his closest guardians. We were his strength; he was our weakness, the kind that compels you to be strong.

We were there, he was there, that’s all.
What exactly we were to him, we never knew precisely. His muses? His sisters? His mother? His daughters? His girls? But no matter what, we were there, he was there.
What he was to us, we knew well: the only one, the exceptional being whom one looks for all life long, our Saint of Saints, our rightly named Saint Laurent, and we had been lucky enough to find him.?
Nothing but Saints and Angels, Guardian Angels…
Demons also, but I chose to ignore them.”

Written by one of the closest persons to this very lonesome genius, these lines also tell something of the close-to-spiritual nature of the famous designer’s inspiration, who exemplified, more than anyone else in the realm of fashion that creation and its human version creativity, is not the exclusive domain of gods.

JEAN PAUL CAUVIN