Agencies

Paris, Jun 3: French fashion legend Yves Saint Laurent, who changed the silhouette of the 20th century woman with a daring new dress code, died of a brain tumour at his Paris residence on Sunday. He was 71. 

 The bespectacled Saint Laurent had retired from haute couture in 2002 after a four-decade-long career in which he dressed the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Paloma Picasso, Bianca Jagger and Lauren Bacall. 

 “I am shattered,’’ said Pierre Berge, his long-time partner who founded the iconic YSL fashion house in 1961 with the designer, then 25. “He was the first to put women in pants, the first to put them in tuxedos, the first to put them in masculine clothes, the first to employ black models,’’ Berge said. “He was audacious, he revolutionised the trade.’’ 

 One of a trio of great designers who dominated 20th century fashion along with Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria, on August 1, 1936, when the North African country was still French territory. A shy, lonely child born into a well-off family, he was taunted for his homosexuality and became increasingly fascinated by clothes. 

 He arrived in Paris in 1953, aged 17, with a portfolio of sketches and quickly persuaded Vogue editor Michel de Brunhoff to publish the images. The following year, Saint Laurent won three of the four categories in a Paris design competition—the fourth went to his rival Karl Lagerfeld,now at Chanel.De Brunhoff advised Christian Dior to hire him and he became the heir-apparent to the great couturier, taking over the house when Dior died suddenly three years later.