Saint Laurent

Saint Laurent is the sharpest house in Paris and the one built on the clearest single idea. Yves Saint Laurent spent his career putting women in clothes borrowed from men’s wardrobes and cutting them so precisely that the borrowing became the point. YSL, the three letters most people actually search, is his name, and the interlocking monogram the poster artist Cassandre drew for the house is still its mark.

The modern label trades on that legacy with discipline. It works in black, sharp shoulders, high-shine leather and a narrow palette. It is a brand that could sprawl and chooses not to.

Behind the brand

History of Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent was twenty-one when he took over Dior on Christian Dior’s death in 1957. His first collection was celebrated, his conscription into the Algerian war ended the tenure, and he opened his own house in 1961 with Pierre Bergé.

What followed was a run of garments that changed what women could wear in public. The Mondrian dress came in 1965, Le Smoking in 1966, and then the safari jacket, the jumpsuit and the sheer blouse. Le Smoking mattered most. Restaurants turned women away for wearing it, and within a decade the tuxedo was a standard part of a woman’s evening wardrobe.

He also opened Rive Gauche in 1966, one of the first ready-to-wear lines from a couturier, on the argument that fashion should not be limited to those who could afford couture. He retired in 2002. The house passed to Tom Ford, then Stefano Pilati, and Hedi Slimane renamed the ready-to-wear line Saint Laurent in 2012 and reset its aesthetic around rock-and-roll Paris. Anthony Vaccarello took the studio in 2016.

In 1983 Yves Saint Laurent became the first living designer given a solo retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the two Musée Yves Saint Laurent that opened in Paris and Marrakech in 2017 keep the archive on permanent public view.

The Saint Laurent collection

Leather is the house’s strongest category. The biker jacket, the ankle boot and the high-shine trouser are its permanent objects, cut narrower than almost anything else at this price. The Loulou, the Kate, the Sac de Jour and the Le 5 à 7 hobo anchor the handbags, and the Cassandre monogram appears with restraint.

Fragrance and beauty are where Saint Laurent reaches the most people. Libre, Black Opium, Y and MYSLF rank among the best-selling scents in the world, and they trade under the full Yves Saint Laurent name. The card holder, the sunglasses and the belt carry the Cassandre monogram to the widest audience, and they open the brand at a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand.

The tailoring still runs through everything, and the tuxedo remains the house’s signature piece.

Craftsmanship and materials

Saint Laurent produces its leather goods and footwear in Italy and its tailoring largely in France and Italy. The house is exacting about leather finish, and the mirror-shine calf used on its boots and bags is a specific treatment that will not tolerate careless wear.

The cut is the craft here. A Saint Laurent jacket runs slim through the shoulder and the sleeve. That is a deliberate house position rather than a sizing accident, so try one on before ordering your usual size.

Where to buy Saint Laurent

Saint Laurent sells through its own stores, its official site, department stores and luxury etailers. The beauty and fragrance business trades separately as Yves Saint Laurent and is far more widely distributed, through department stores and beauty retailers. Our guide to the best leather jackets for men covers how the house compares with its rivals.

Saint Laurent price

Saint Laurent prices alongside Gucci and Balenciaga inside the Kering group. Small leather goods and belts start in the mid hundreds, handbags in the low thousands, and a leather jacket runs into the mid four figures. The jacket is the buy. It is the piece the house has been refining longest and the one least likely to date.