The Trapeze Collection (S/S 1958)

the "Trapeze" collection/

“The exciting first collection by this grave young man, slender, myopic, charming, and the baby [sic] of the knowing team that carries on the house of Dior.”
Vogue/

"Today’s collection has made a French national hero out of Dior’s successor, Yves Saint Laurent and comfortably assures the future of the house Dior built." The New York Times/

"It seemed impossible that Dior himself wasn’t coming out at the end... Everybody was crying. It was the emotional fashion binge of all time."
The Herald Tribune/

"Yves Saint Laurent went to a balcony over Avenue Montaigne where his photo was taken with people cheering him from the street below. Photographers perched on the other balconies to take shots."
Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent/

Saint Laurent, just like his mentor did, perfectly fit with the changing zeitgeist of the era. It was the beginning of an extraordinary decade of change, after the austerity and reconstruction of the fifties. Haute couture was about to become isolated from the demands of the emerging mass consumer society. In 1959 Piere Gardin, member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, would present his first ready-to-wear line. Almost five years later, Yves Saint Laurent would open "Rive Gauche", his first ready-to-wear boutique.

"An American fashion editor sitting in front of me rose to her feet with tears in her eyes. There were two French women next to me also crying. One turned to the other and said, 'my dear, France is saved. It’s Joan of Arc.' I remember thinking that was a ridiculous thing to hear from a woman who had lived through the war. " Marie-José Lepicard, journalist/

"The collection was delight. He was le petit prince and everyone adored him."
Janie Samet, journalist/

A shy 22-year-old man in a clean cut suit and glasses achieved overnight success.

For this collection Saint Laurent combined the formal Dior look with Chanel's simplicity of line and form to point the fashion industry to a new direction.

Using the same fine fabrics, he created loose shapes and dresses without the padding and linings that had made Dior’s designs stiff.

The trapeze shape was everywhere.

The following year, the "Trapeze" collection was the first ever to be showcased in Moscow.

"When Christian Dior died, the chance to create my own collections pushed me to set aside my projects to work in the theater. At the age of 21, I entered a kind of fortress of celebrity that was to become the trap of my life. My love for the theater would never leave me, but in the mean time, Dior had taught me to love something other than fashion and design: the fundamental nobility of the couturier's profession. I believe that a creator who is not also a couturier, and has not learned the most subtle secrets of the actual creation of his models, is like a sculptor who gives his sketches to another, an artisan, who realizes them. For him, the truncated creative processwill always appear as an interrupted act of love, and his style will always bear a brittleness and paucity."

Yves Saint Laurent 1983/

Yves Saint Laurent's first couture collection for Christian Dior was presented on the 30th of January 1958.

"France is saved!"

photo/ en.rian.ru

Would he ever be such an innovative fashion designer if he had never met and worked with Christian Dior?

Spring/Summer 1958 collection for Christian Dior, the "Trapeze" collection, was only the first step of Yves' pioneering career. The same year he first met Pierre Berge, his long-time romantic and business partner. Yves Saint Laurent was meant to become the undisputed star of Haute Couture. He was trained by the creator of "New Look" to develop even a "newest" look; the outfit of the powerful, modern women of the late 20th century.

photo/ The Guardian

photo/ en.rian.ru

photos/ The Metropolitan Museum of Art

photo/ Associated Press

photo/ digitalcollection.chicagohistory.org