High-Fashion House to Close, but YSL Brand Will Remain : Saint Laurent to Take Last Bow (Published 2002) (2024)

PARIS – Yves Saint Laurent, the designer who defined the way 20th century women dressed, is set to announce Monday his retirement from haute couture and the closure of the house he founded 40 years ago, although YSL as a brand will continue.

Mr. Saint Laurent, 65, and his partner Pierre Berge, 71, will lay out plans for the valedictory fashion show to be staged at the Georges Pompidou center Jan. 22, during the Paris haute couture spring/summer season.

Even before the official announcement, the fashion world has reacted with shock and disbelief to the end of a fashion institution. Saint Laurent, the inventor of the pant suit as a female uniform and the tuxedo as high fashion, has set a gold standard for taste and style.

"I am feeling a lot of emotion and pain the closure is a shock both professionally and personally," said Francois Lesage, the couture embroiderer who has worked with Mr. Saint Laurent since 1958, when he took over as designer from the late Christian Dior.

"I'll have to go naked!" exclaimed Nan Kempner, an American client whose love affair with Mr. Saint Laurent's clothes started with a white mink-trimmed Dior coat.

"Having grown up together has been a great privilege for me," she added. "Yves has such sensitivity and sensibility. And all the dresses are still in my closet or on my back. Everything is still wearable."