The Dior Years

With the help of his fathers’ contacts, Yves Saint Laurent met Michel de Brunhoff, editor-in-chief of Vogue (Paris), in 1953. He encouraged Saint Laurent to finish his studies, and they continued to correspond until 1955. In his letters, Saint Laurent asked de Brunhoff for advice about his future career.

In June 1955, Yves Saint Laurent, who was still studying at the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la haute couture, met with Michel de Brunhoff again and showed him approximately fifty recent sketches. De Brunhoff was immediately struck by the young man’s talent and the close resemblance between his drawings and Christian Dior’s A-line designs. He arranged for Saint Laurent to meet Dior at 30 avenue Montaigne, where the young man was immediately hired to work in the couturier’s studio.

Yves Saint Laurent would spend two years working alongside Christian Dior, learning the secrets of haute couture from the master himself. Collections comprised of some two hundred designs would emerge from sketches, toiles, and fittings. Saint Laurent was first entrusted with decorating the boutiques. He also helped make a number haute couture dresses. Quickly earning Dior’s trust, he was given more and more responsibilities. “He taught me the essential,” Saint Laurent wrote in 1986. “Then came other influences that, because he had taught me the essential, blended into this essential and found it to be a wonderful and prolific terrain, the necessary seeds that would allow me to assert myself, grow strong, blossom, and finally exude my own universe.”

At Dior, Yves Saint Laurent met people who would change his life. Anne-Marie Muñoz, who also worked in the studio, became a loyal friend and ongoing collaborator throughout his entire career. He also met the model Victoire Doutreleau, who would later participate in the opening of his haute couture house. He met the sculptors François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne when he was decorating the boutique at 15 rue François Ier, for which he also created greeting cards and special designs called “zinzins.” He would later collaborate with the couple and collect their work. During this period, he also met the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire and the choreographer Roland Petit, for whom he would later design numerous costumes and stage sets.

On October 24, 1957, Christian Dior died from a heart attack during a stay in Montecatini, Italy. According to his wishes, Yves Saint Laurent became his successor and was named artistic director of the haute couture house at the age of 21.

Although they did not yet know each other, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé were both present at Dior’s funeral. Bergé and his companion at the time, the painter Bernard Buffet, were close friends of the couturier. Bergé and Saint Laurent would not meet until a few months later.

While the world was still mourning the death of Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent only had a few months to prepare the Spring-Summer 1958 collection, which was scheduled to be presented on January 30. He flew to Oran, as he usually did when preparing the sketches he would show Dior. He created over six hundred drawings in fifteen days.

At 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, January 30, 1958, Yves Saint Laurent was about to present his first collection for Christian Dior. Everyone was impatient to see it, from the international press to Pierre Bergé, who was attending his first fashion show with Bernard Buffet. An hour later, there was a standing ovation. The press was in a state of euphoria, attempting to immortalize the debut of the “little prince of fashion,” while groups of admirers wept with joy.

Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé met for the first time during a dinner at the Cloche d’or on the Rue Mansart a few days after Saint Laurent presented his collection for Dior. The dinner, which was also attended by Raymonde Zehnacker and Bernard Buffet, was planned by Marie-Louise Bousquet, head of the French edition of Harper’s Bazaar.

Between 1958 and 1960, Yves Saint Laurent designed six collections for Dior. According to the press release for his third collection, under his direction, “the figure was lost in favor of style.” The couturier dreamed up clothing for the women of his generation and distanced himself from the dictates of 1950s bourgeois elegance.

His last collection for Dior, named “Souplesse, Légèreté, Vie,” was very dark, featuring purple and black. It included a crocodile-style leather jacket and turtlenecks, making Saint Laurent seem like a capricious and provocative designer. For the first time in his career, his collection was not unanimously well received.

On September 1, 1960, as the conflict in Algeria intensified, Yves Saint Laurent was drafted for military duty. He was hospitalized at Val-de-Grâce for depression soon after. The house of Dior decided to fire him and chose Marc Bohan as his replacement. When Pierre Bergé delivered the news, Saint Laurent said, “We will found a haute couture house together, and you will manage it,” to which Bergé replied, “That’s what we will do.” And that is exactly what they did.