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Yves Saint Laurent
Algerian-born Yves Saint Laurent and business partner/ex-lover Pierre Berge started the brand in 1962, after Saint Laurent was laid off from his top rank at Dior following his stint in the French Army. Going solo, it turned out, galvanized YSL's creative output and career. The designer is credited with a great many things: the women's tuxedo (and Le Smoking), the trench coat and peacoat as high fashion, safari-chic, the shirt dress, the iconic Mondrian dress (and the subsequent graphic print craze), "ethnic-inspired" and beatnik gear, and numerous other sartorial coups that have penetrated our collective style-unconscious. Saint Laurent was also was the first couturier to market and cultivate his pret-a-porter line Rive Gauche, and he was among the first to feature black models. In 1993, the house was sold to pharmaceuticals company Sanofi for over $600 million before the Gucci Group acquired the brand. Yves stayed aboard, designing the couture collection until his retirement in 2002, which marked the shuttering of that arm of the business. Rive Gauche was designed by Lanvin's Alber Elbaz for three seasons starting in 1998, and then by Creative Director Tom Ford, who brought the brand back into the spotlight with heightened sex appeal and provocative marketing, somewhat to the dismay of Saint Laurent, who was not particularly fond of Ford's aesthetic. Stefano Pilati is the current designer, and though his roots are in Milan, his sensibility is more in line with that of the late Monsieur Saint Laurent, who died in 2008 at the age of 71.
