One of the most successful fashion designers of the 20th century Yves Saint Laurent has died last night at the age of 71. Yves Saint Laurent had suffered a long illness and a lifetime of depression. A long-time friend of Saint Laurent said he died at his Paris home yesterday evening. Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria, in 1936 but left for Paris aged 17 in 1953.

Yves Saint Laurent was the first to use black women on the catwalk and won countless awards for his creations. Using his own label, YSL, he popularised fashion trends throughout the sixties and seventies.

When Christian Dior died suddenly in 1957, Saint Laurent was named head of the House of Christian Dior at the age of 21. The next year, his first solo collection for Dior the “trapeze” line launched Saint Laurent’s stardom.

Pierre Berge who was the designer’s long time business partner and former romantic partner was quoted as saying that Saint Laurent was born with a nervous breakdown. The pair later started a chain of Rive Gauche ready-to-wear boutiques.

When Yves Saint Laurent announced his retirement in 2002, it was mourned in the fashion world as the end of an era. He said that ‘I have nothing in common with this new world of fashion, which has been reduced to mere window-dressing. Elegance and beauty have been banished.’

Yves Saint Laurent fashion house continued and this week, Yves Saint Laurent unveiled Naomi Campbell as the new face of the French fashion house despite her recent run-ins with the law. It said that Saint Laurent launched Miss Campbell’s career.

It’s said that Yves Saint Laurent has been in poor health for the last few months of his life and is thought to have been suffering from respiratory illness.

All our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time

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