Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective Opens in Paris

From his signature A-line Trapeze dresses to his stint as haute couture head of Christian Dior at 21, designer Yves Saint Laurent forever changed women’s fashion—an influence exhibited in a Parisian retrospective at the Petit Palais. Curators Florence Muller and Farid Chenoune covered four decades of Saint Laurent’s influence, looking at both what he achieved and who inspired him to do so. When “Yves Saint Laurent” opened, the designer’s partner in both his work and personal lives, Pierre Bergé mingled with fashion elite from Jean-Charles de Castelbajac to Elle Macpherson. “Yves Saint Laurent understood that power lay with men. So he used men’s clothes to dress women, it was a transfer of power,” Bergé told reporters at the press opening.