Fashion Flashbacks: Influential Collections Vol. 2

Yves Saint Laurent, “Pop Art Collection”, Autumn/Winter 1966


 

Pictured: Le Smoking photographed by Helmut Newton for French Vogue, 1975

Yves Saint Laurent’s “Pop Art” Autumn/Winter haute couture collection in 1966 shocked the world. Amongst Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol-inspired slim-line fur coats and dresses, Saint Laurent also debuted what has become one of his most iconic looks: the infamous Le Smoking. The 1966 look featured a classic dinner jacket in black grain de poudre with four button-down pockets and trousers with a satin side-stripe. It was styled with a ruffled blouse and black bow tie. The original design differed from the classic male tuxedo. Saint Laurent drew inspiration from men’s suits and women’s clothing. The result was a more subtle shape and curve to the collar and a nipped waistline. Still, the collection was undoubtedly subversive, undoubtedly “masculine”.

Curator at Paris Fashion Museum, Pamela Golbin, described the look as “an explosion” and “a revolution” which saw women taking possession of an outfit “which symbolises masculinity itself”. It was a landmark moment in fashion which offered women the chance to re-appropriate a look traditionally reserved for powerful patriarchal figures. Speaking at the Smoking Forever exhibition at the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent in Paris in 2005, Catherine Deneuve remarked that “the thing about a tuxedo is that it is virile and feminine at the same time”. She was the first to wear a version of Le Smoking, which she described as “double-breasted and very severe. It really does make you feel different as a woman, it changes the gestures.”

Such liberation was not welcomed by everyone. The couturiere had designed a tuxedo for women at a time when they were often denied entry into fashionable restaurants or hotels if they were wearing trousers. New York socialite Nan Kempner was famously turned away from Le Côte Basque in New York while wearing her YSL tuxedo suit. Her solution was to remove the bottom half and wear the jacket as a mini-dress. She was allowed in! Helmut Newton shot the look for French Vogue in 1975. His portraits of a woman with slicked back hair and cigarette in hand, clad in Le Smoking, and intertwined with another model wearing only black stilettos, imbued the tuxedo with an iconic glamour.

Le Smoking has been incredibly influential, inspiring a surge of minimalist and androgynous fashion. The brand has debuted a new take on the design almost yearly, offering sequinned, cropped, belted, double-breasted, long, mini dress-like, caped, draped, shaped and uncollared versions. This includes Alber Elbaz’s sleek version for YSL Spring 1999, which featured red lips, slicked hair and no blouse underneath, and Heidi Slimane’s recent Saint Laurent Ready to Wear Fall 2016 collection with all the distinctly dramatic 80s sensibility of an oversized ruffled collar and bold shoulders. The one constant is the black hue of the tuxedo – a shade which Saint Laurent himself described as “a refuge”.

Scores of designers have presented similar styles. Notable past looks included Tom Ford’s navy velvet version for Gucci Fall 1996, which he topped with a jaunty orange velvet necktie. Givenchy Spring 2010 Couture offered a vampy take, pairing the tuxedo with a heavily feathered top, glittery gloves and heavy smoky eye. Dior’s 2012 collection by Raf Simons featured a minimalistic monochrome tuxedo with models sporting a thick necktie, dewy complexion and pastel eyeshadow.

Saint Laurent attributed Le Smoking’s enduring appeal to its ability to make the wearer feel “continually in fashion, because it is about style, not fashion. Fashions come and go, but style is forever”. The very last piece made in the haute couture atelier in Avenue Marceau in 2002 was a version of the 1966 tuxedo, ordered by Paul Smith for his wife Pauline.

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