Yves Saint Laurent's Early Years

The Mathieu-Saint-Laurents arrived in Algeria in 1870, after Yves Saint Laurent’s great-grandfather Pierre Mathieu de Metz fled Alsace. The family was primarily composed of judges and was part of Oran’s affluent class. They enjoyed the city’s cultural offerings, attending the theater and the opera on a regular basis. The couturier’s father Charles, manager of an insurance company and owner of a chain of cinemas, and his mother Lucienne had three children: Yves and his two younger sisters Michèle and Brigitte, born in 1942 and 1945. 

The house was located at 11 rue Stora in the Plateau Saint Michel neighborhood. Yves Saint Laurent’s parents lived on the ground floor, and his uncle’s family lived on the floor above them. As a child, Saint Laurent observed the refined lifestyle of Oran’s society people through his mother’s friends, who came to drink tea and discuss the latest fashions and the plays they had seen. Each summer, the family left their villa in Oran for Trouville, one of the most prestigious beaches in the region.

As a teenager, Yves Saint Laurent went to a strict Catholic school where he had trouble thriving. At home, he took refuge in the world he created in his drawings.

In May 1950, Molière’s École des femmes (School for Wives) was performed in Oran. The production, first created at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris in 1936, was directed by Louis Jouvet. The legendary set and costumes were the work of painter and decorator Christian Bérard. Yves Saint Laurent attended a performance with his mother. It was one of his first theatrical experiences and proved to be a true artistic revelation for him.

After seeing the performance of L’École des femmes (The School for Wives), Yves Saint Laurent decided to create his own little theater. Inside a wooden crate decorated with an arabesque frontispiece on which was written “L’Illustre Théâtre,” he dressed his cardboard characters using pieces of old sheets his mother gave him or pieces of fabric cut from her dresses. He would hold performances for his spellbound sisters and cousins.

Christian Bérard was a major figure of the Parisian arts scene in the mid-twentieth century. Working as an illustrator for Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, and Coco Chanel, he published his drawings in all the prestigious fashion magazines from the 1930s to the end of the 1940s. He was also a close friend of Jean Cocteau, Louis Jouvet, and Boris Kochno, for whom he designed theater sets and costumes. Both his designs and fashion illustrations served as key sources of inspiration for Yves Saint Laurent. 

Bérard’s style was characterized by elegant, delicate lines. The faces and bodies of his figures were simply sketched out, while the clothes were more detailed. He played with the nuances that could be achieved by diluting gouache and created depth by painting on colored paper. Like him, Saint Laurent used gouache and colored paper in his early drawings, setting the scene by sketching in the foreground. He also revisited the plays and ballets for which Bérard had created designs, such as L’Aigle à deux têtes (The Eagle with Two Heads), Les Forains, and La Reine Margot (Queen Margot).

Mainly inspired by Christian Bérard and illustrations from fashion magazines, Yves Saint Laurent began drawing early on. His first dated sketches, which are held in the museum’s collection, go as far back as 1951 and depict sets and costumes for the theater and ballet. While the faces of his figures are rarely detailed, the clothes are very specific, making it possible to distinguish the type of fabric. The lines are confidently executed, but the sense of perspective is sometimes unsure. Nonetheless, the young artist’s talent is already present in his color associations, the way he organized the elements on paper, and the diversity of the subjects he explored. Most of these sketches are dated and signed “Yves Mathieu Saint Laurent” or “YMSL”; the “Mathieu” ceased to figure in his signature around 1957. 

In addition to the drawings he did on loose-leaf paper, Yves Saint Laurent enjoyed transcribing books and adding his own drawings when he was 13 years old. In 1950, he illustrated Merlin by André Pragane, and in 1951, he illustrated Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Jacques Prévert’s poem “Encore une fois sur le fleuve”. He carefully delineated the space devoted to text and sometimes inserted his own illustrations. 

In 1949 and 1950, he also wrote two books, satires of sorts aimed at teaching children about the delights and pitfalls of love. These notebooks, which seem to be inspired by 1950s comics, reveal the young artist’s sensitivity to another kind of esthetic, his sense of irony, and his vast imagination. 

After trying his hand at directing and book illustration, the young designer turned to another passion: fashion. He looked ahead to his future life through his paper dolls, for which he designed entire wardrobes. For the two collections he created (autumn-winter 1953-1954 and 1954-1955), the young Saint Laurent made eleven dolls and over five hundred garments and accessories. He also made highly detailed programs. These paper dolls were effigies of the well-known models of the day, such as Bettina and Suzy, whose silhouettes he cut out of his mother’s magazines. They show the genius and maturity of a 17-year-old teenager who effortlessly envisioned his future career.

Play with the Paper Dolls

Just after turning 17 in 1953, Yves Saint Laurent participated in the Secrétariat International de la Laine’s annual competition in Paris and won third prize in the dress category. He competed once more the following year, winning first and third prizes in the same cateogry. 

During his first stay in Paris, he met the editor-in-chief of Vogue (Paris), Michel de Brunhoff, with whom he continued to correspond after returning to Oran. De Brunhoff encouraged him to pursue a career in fashion and advised him notably to enroll at the École de la Chambre syndicale. Saint Laurent, who moved to Paris in autumn 1954, sent him his fashion illustrations—ones that were probably similiar to those on display here. De Brunhoff, who was struck by their resemblance to Christian Dior’s drawings, helped arrange for the two of them to meet. Excited about the young Saint Laurent’s talent, the couturier immediately decided to hire him to work in his studio in summer 1955. Saint Laurent had realized his childhood dream.