Saint Laurent is seen here with a drawing of his cocktail dress design that won him first prize in a fashion drawing competition a year earlier. The win led to his job with Christian Dior.
Saint Laurent, with the help of his assistant Marguerite Carre, tests a hat on model Svetlana, who is wearing his famous trapeze dress.
Saint Laurent is flanked by Betty Catroux (left) and Loulou de la Falaise (right) outside his first London chain of Rive Gauche ready-to-wear boutique in Bond Street. The women are wearing his new safari-style designs made of khaki cotton.
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2002
Saint Laurent names one of his women's perfumes Opium and is accused of glamorising drug use and trivialising the 19th-century Opium Wars in China. It still became a bestseller.
Supermodel Claudia Schiffer is one of the models for Saint Laurent's spring/summer haute couture collection.
The Mondrian dresses, made in 1965, were inspired by painter Piet Mondrian. The designs are again presented at Saint Laurent's last haute couture show at the Pompidou Centre later.
2002
Saint Laurent is applauded by models at the end of his last haute couture fashion show in Paris.
Photos: AP, Reuters, ST
This article was first published in The Straits Times on Jun 3, 2008.
