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Yves Leaves

Legendary designer Saint Laurent 'bids adieu' to the fashion world, abruptly retires

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Yves Saint Laurent, the legendary French fashion designer, has announced in Paris that he is retiring. He is 65.

“I have chosen today to bid adieu to this profession that I have loved so much,''he read from notes, then left immediately without answering questions. Conjecture was that he has been in ill health lately; also that he has become increasingly frustrated by trends in the world of fashion.

Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent's business partner for 40 years, said he believed the designer had decided to retire because he was uncomfortable with the direction the fashion world had taken. “We have entered the era of marketing, at the expense of creativity,” Berge told the press. “It's not very fun to play a tennis match when you are all alone.”

There have also been rumors of clashes between Saint Laurent and Tom Ford, head designer of The Gucci Group, which bought the rights to the YSL brand for $70 million in 1999.

The one-time boy wonder of fashion design was only 17 when he came to the attention of Christian Dior. Saint Laurent trained under Dior and was named head designer at House of Dior following the designer's death in 1957. Saint Laurent was 21. Five years later, he opened his own haute couture fashion house.

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“I had the luck at 18 to become assistant to Christian Dior, and to succeed him at 21 and to meet with success from my first collection in 1958,” Saint Laurent said at his press conference. “That will be 44 years in a few days. Above all, it was Christian Dior who was my master and who was the first to reveal the secrets and mysteries of haute couture.”

Long considered a trailblazer, Saint Laurent has been credited with the introduction of pantsuits for women, see-through shirts, stylish men's suits with wide lapels and fitted shapes and colorful and full foulard ties (emblazoned with the YSL logo). His “chic beatnik''look — a black leather jacket, knit turtleneck, high boots — is still the look of the street today. The Algerian-born designer frequently said he took his inspiration from everywhere, from his youth in North Africa to the designs of artists like Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso.

In recent years, critics have complained that Saint Laurent was no longer breaking new ground with his collections, but rather repackaging his former successes. While the designer has often closely guarded his privacy, his battles with illness, depression, drug and alcohol and his homosexuality became well-known and might have contributed to his decision, though he insisted he was in good shape. “I've known fear and terrible solitude,” he said. “Tranquilizers and drugs, those phony friends. The prison of depression and hospitals. I've emerged from all this, dazzled but sober.”

His decision means that Saint Laurent's house of haute couture will close, but not the ready-to-wear collection of less-extravagant, more-affordable clothes that bears his name. That belongs to Gucci. French billionaire Francois Pinault, whose holding company Pinault-Printemps-Redoute owns 53.2 percent of Gucci, controlled the Saint Laurent haute couture line.

“I want to thank Francois Pinault and express my gratitude to him for permitting me to put a harmonious end to this wonderful adventure,” Saint Laurent said in his statement, “and we both agree that the haute couture of this house must stop with my departure.”

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