Vogue on: Yves Saint Laurent

A tortured genius and one of most influential designers of the twentieth century, Yves Saint Laurent was responsible for revolutionising the way women dressed and viewed themselves.During a wildly creative career stretching from 1958 to 2002 Saint Laurent established a reputation for accessible, flawlessly cut clothes. He became an overnight sensation in 1958, aged 21, when he showed his &#39;Trapeze&#39; collection, his first for the House of Christian Dior, following the master&#39;s death.Four years later, Saint Laurent opened his own couture house and within a few seasons was hailed by Vogue&#39;s Diana Vreeland as &#39;the pied piper of fashion&#39;. Viewed as a master colourist and admired for his choice of sultry fabrics, his great gift was creating lasting styles - described by Vogue as &#39;stockpiles of essentials in times of famine&#39; - that flattered all shapes and sizes. As well as designing wardrobe classics like the &#39;Le Smoking&#39; tuxedo for women, the Safari jacket, the trench and the pea coat, and introducing trousers into haute couture, he also dressed international style icons such as Catherine Deneuve, Marella Agnelli and Lauren Bacall.With his nose for the zeitgeist, Saint Laurent recognised the global power of street fashion and launched Rive Gauche, his ready-to-wear boutique line in 1966. Christened &#39;The Saint&#39; by Vogue, every element of his fashion empire, which included exhilarating couture collections, exquisite accessories and sought-after perfumes, was captured by Vogue&#39;s writers and leading photographers like Richard Avedon, David Bailey and Norman Parkinson.

Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is a Paris-based British writer and journalist. After writinga column for Andy Warhol&#39;s Interview magazine in New York, she left for Paris in 1989, where she assisted Karl Lagerfeld in the Chanel Studio. From 1991-1999 shewas at Women&#39;s Wear Daily and W magazine and was European Editor of American Harper&#39;'s Bazaar until 2004. Fraser-Cavassoni is the author of Monsieur Dior - Once Upon a Time, Sam Spiegel: The Biography of A Hollywood Legend, Tino Zervudachi: A Portfolio, Chanel and Loulou de la Falaise.

Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni

This book reveals how Calvin Klein created a fashion brand that made understated, all-American glamour his own &ndash; at the same time as building a vast billion-dollar empire that includes everything from pants and jeans to perfume and pillows.&#160;A master of minimalism, Klein&rsquo;s clothes have been beautifully documented in the pages of Vogue over the years by the world&rsquo;s starriest photographers, including Terry Donovan, Herb Ritts, Snowdon and Nick Knight. While Vogue also reflected the public&rsquo;s fascination with his film-star handsomeness, glamorous marriage and divorces, bi-sexuality, drama and stints in rehab, the magazine understood that Calvin Klein&rsquo;s success lay in the very opposite of excess: &lsquo;His clothes simply offered women practical elegance and cool, understated chic&rsquo;.In the early 1970s, he introduced his trademark jeans, which he elevated to designer status by cutting them tight and branding his name on the back pocket. Suggestive ads (with the nubile, 15-year-old Brooke Shields cooing &lsquo;You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.&rsquo;) created a designer jean frenzy among consumers. In 1993, he also made sexy male underwear mainstream with an equally seductive campaign featuring the beefcake charms of the young Mark Wahlberg.&#160;This is the ultimate handbook to an American icon.

Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni

Books by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni

Series by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni

Vogue on Designers

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