From Spring Collections To Spring Pictures: Homoerotic Sketches of Yves Saint Laurent

Pornography? I don't know what that is. Pornography, eroticism, love, it's all the same to me - this was an answer from the iconic couturier to the interviewer Bianca Jagger when she asked Saint Laurent frankly about his attitude to adult movies. Love, in its physical and Platonic manifestations, by all means, was a driving force of his genius. Among hundreds of thousands of his sketches, there was a homoerotic portfolio created in the 1960s-1970s that some people claim to be stolen by Fabrice Thomas, the designer's last lover, and others - to be given to Thomas by Saint Laurent himself.

Fig. 1. Young Yves Saint Laurent at work (businessoffashion.com)

Fig. 2. Saint Laurent with his muses Loulou de la Falais (left) and Betty Catroux (right); wordpress.com

Fig. 3. Dress inspired by Romanian Blouse of Matisse (radiofrance.fr)

Fig. 4. Jacket inspired by Van Gogh? (P1) (christies.com)

Fig. 5. Jacket inspired by Picasso (doitinparis.com)

Fig. 6. Pop art dress (denverartmuseum.org)

Fig. 7. Mondrian dress (whatculture.com)

Fig. 7a. The look inspired by Piet Mondrian and Saint Laurent in the video of Katy Perry This Is How We Do, 2018

Make Art Wearable

The master of ready-to-wear clothes, who aimed not to make women beautiful but, as he said, to give them confidence, drew his inspiration from the works of Van Gogh, Matisse, and, of course, the Dutch avant-garde painter Piet Mondrian (even if you know nothing about fashion, you do know the Mondrian dress). Living in a world free of cultural appropriation hysteria, he skillfully used Asian, African, and Russian motifs in his collections. Speaking of feminism, Saint Laurent was one of the figures to whom females owed a trend of wearing trousers. Le Smoking, a tuxedo suit for women created in 1966, remains his most famous work.

Fig. 8. African-styled dresses (whatculture.com)

Fig. 9. Russian-style look (pinterest.com)

Fig. 10. Rich peasants collection (wordpress.com)

Fig. 11. Evening ensemble in the Asian style (pen-online.com)

Fig. 12. Sketch for La Revue, 1970 (collection.museeyslparis.com)

Fig. 13. Sketch for La Revue, 1970 (pinterest.com)

Fig. 14. Sketch for La Revue, 1970 (pinterest.com)

Fig. 15. Sketch for La Revue, 1970 (collection.museeyslparis.com)

Fig.16. Transparent blouse, 1968 

The extended Premium edition features many bonus features including more on Saint Laurent's early years, his rise and fall, the YSL Fashion House, the mystery of the fashion designer's explicit portfolio, his seductive outfits and shunga influences, and numerous additional sketches.

Click HERE for the horny minotaurs and handsome sailors of Ukrainian artist Kirill Fadeyev

Sources: Wikipedia.org; The Mystery of the Saint Laurent Sketches, October 8, 2012 (wwd.com); 1-9-6-3.livejournal.com,