YSL RIP

By Xeni Jardin at 4:27 pm Sunday, Jun 1

The iconic fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent has died at age 71. It is in part because of his influence on modern popular style that pants are now considered fashionable for women:

Originally a maverick and a generator of controversy – in 1968, his suggestion that women wear pants as an everyday uniform was considered revolutionary – Mr. Saint Laurent developed into a more conservative designer, a believer in evolution rather than revolution. He often said that all a woman needed to be fashionable was a pair of pants, a sweater and a raincoat. “My small job as a couturier,” he once said, “is to make clothes that reflect our times. I’m convinced women want to wear pants.”

Another snip from the NYT obit:

“Every man needs aesthetic phantoms in order to exist,” Mr. Saint Laurent said at the announcement of his retirement. “I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquilizers and drugs. I have known the prison of depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober.”