[3] In 1985, historian Caroline Milbank called Saint Laurent "the most consistently celebrated and influential designer of the past twenty-five years", adding that he "can be credited with both spurring the couture's rise from its 1960s ashes and with finally rendering ready-to-wear reputable".

[4] Saint Laurent was born on 1 August 1936, in Oran, Algeria,[5][6] to French parents (Pieds-Noirs), Charles and Lucienne Andrée Mathieu-Saint-Laurent.

[7] Saint Laurent liked to create intricate paper dolls, and by his early teen years, he was designing dresses for his mother and sisters.

[9] During his stay in Paris, Saint Laurent met Michel de Brunhoff, editor-in-chief of the French edition of Vogue magazine and a connection to his father.

Later that same year, he entered the International Wool Secretariat competition again and won, beating his friend Fernando Sánchez and young German student Karl Lagerfeld.

[36] This exacerbated his condition, and he was transferred to Val-de-Grâce military hospital, where he was given large doses of sedatives and psychoactive drugs and subjected to electroshock therapy.

After a period of convalescence, he and his partner, industrialist Pierre Bergé, started their own fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent or YSL, with funds from American millionaire J. Mack Robinson,[38] cosmetics company Charles of the Ritz, and others.

[40][41] His debut collection, presented for spring 1962, was noted for its suits[42] and included early examples of the cut-outs that would be popular in fashion in a few years,[43] but it received mixed reviews.

[46][47] It featured India-inspired evening dress, a mostly dark, rich color palette,[48] and a refinement of the bohemian influences seen in his fall 1960 Dior collection, evoking in many journalists' minds Paris's Left Bank.

[60] Many of his designs were inspired by women's lives in the sociopolitical climate of the time, particularly the trousers he showed in 1968 after witnessing the epochal French uprisings of that year.

[61][62] Saint Laurent is often said to have been the main designer responsible for making more widely acceptable the wearing of pants by women,[63][64][65] after André Courrèges made the first strides in that direction in 1964.

The French designer opened his prêt-à-porter house YSL Rive Gauche in 1967, where he was starting to shift his focus from haute couture to ready-to-wear.

He was the first French couturier to come out with a full prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) line; although Alicia Drake credits this move with Saint Laurent's wish to democratize fashion;[68] others[who?]

The first of the company's Rive Gauche stores, which sold the prêt-à-porter line, opened on the rue de Tournon in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, on 26 September 1966.

"[11] Criticism notwithstanding, Saint Laurent's influence was such that the collection did lead to some general fashion changes in shoulder and lapel shape and increased the popularity of tailored blazers.

Yves Saint Laurent was a great admirer of Marcel Proust who had been a frequent guest of Gaston Gallimard, one of the previous owners of the villa.

When they bought Château Gabriel, Saint Laurent and Bergé commissioned Jacques Grange to decorate it with themes inspired by Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

[95] Following his 1978 introduction of the big-shoulder-pad looks[96] that would dominate the 1980s, he relied on a restricted set of styles based largely on big-shouldered jackets and narrow skirts and trousers[97][98] that didn't vary much during the decade,[99][100][101][102] resulting in some fashion writers bemoaning the loss of his former inventiveness[103][104][105] and others welcoming the familiarity.

When Saint Laurent was diagnosed as terminal, with only one or two weeks left to live, Bergé and the doctor mutually decided that it would be better for him not to know of his impending death.

[135] The funeral attendees included the former Empress of Iran Farah Pahlavi, Bernadette Chirac, Catherine Deneuve, and President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni.

Before the sale, Bergé commented that the decision to sell the collection was taken because, without Saint Laurent, "it has lost the greater part of its significance", with the proceeds proposed for the creation of a new foundation for AIDS research.

[139] However, the anonymous buyer revealed himself to be Cai Mingchao, a representative of the PRC's National Treasures Fund, and claimed that he would not pay for them on "moral and patriotic grounds".

[140] The heads remained in Bergé's possession[141] until acquired by François Pinault, owner of many luxury brands including Yves Saint Laurent.

[145] In 2022, the "Yves Saint Laurent Aux Musées" exhibition was held simultaneously at six Parisian cultural institutions, demonstrating the enduring legacy of his work and his lifelong fascination with art.