PARIS, Jan 7, 2002 --- "I have today decided to bid farewell to the world of fashion I have so loved," Yves Saint Laurent told a packed press conference in Paris Monday, as he poetically confirmed his departure from a profession he bestrode for more than four decades.

The announcement, delivered in an emotional voice by the designer himself at his 5 Ave Marceau headquarters, was widely expected since last Thursday, when the house of Saint Laurent began inviting journalists to a press conference held noon today.

The move brings to an end an extraordinary career with an admirable symmetry; Saint Laurent staged the first fashion collection under his own label four decades ago in January 1962.

It would be hard to overstate the importance of Saint Laurent for fashion. He invented the trouser suit and safari look, made the tuxedo into a fashion item, first put transparency on the catwalk, and continually breached bourgeois conventions of good taste, not least by appearing nude in his own perfume advertisement.

His final show, to be staged on Tuesday, January 22 in the Pompidou Center, "will largely be composed of a retrospective of my work," explained Saint Laurent, one of the key designers of the last 50 years.

The achingly shy Saint Laurent, whom his long-time partner Pierre Berge once famously described as being "born with a nervous breakdown," was painfully honest about the demons he fought throughout his remarkable career.

"Every man needs aesthetic phantoms in order to exist. I have hunted mine out, pursued them and tracked them down. I have grappled with anguish and I have been through sheer hell. I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquilizers and drugs. I have known depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober."

"It was Marcel Proust who taught me that 'the magnificent and pitiful family of the hypersensitive are the salt of the earth.' I, without knowing it, was part of that family," Saint Laurent read from a four-page speech written together with Berge.

Dressed in a somber suit, Saint Laurent spoke carefully to the audience composed of fashion editors and TV journalists, as a pack of French radio and TV stations broadcast his speech. He left the gilded salon where the conference was held to prolonged applause, declining to answer any questions.

The company Yves Saint Laurent Couture will close down by the end of 2002. The house's 150 employees had been informed of the decision just hours before press conference.

Yves' departure reduces to 12 the number of French haute couture houses and raises doubts about the future of this extravagant, structurally loss-making profession, whose client base has shrunk to less than 1,500 clients.

YSL's far larger ready-to-wear and accessories businesses, under the direction of the Gucci Group's Creative Director Tom Ford, will continue unchanged.

Berge was keen to underline that the decision to retire was a voluntary one, and not the result of pressure by Francois Pinault, the French billionaire who acquired control of YSL in 1999 for $900 million.

"I want to be clear that deal that we signed has never changed. This deal allowed Yves Saint Laurent to stay until to 2006. It's a real insult to suggest that Mr. Pinault could have broken this deal. If this house is stopping today it is only due to Mr. Saint Laurent's desire," Berge insisted.

In 1999, the Pinault-controlled Gucci Group completed the takeover of Sanofi, the parent company of YSL, and appointed Gucci's Creative Director Tom Ford in charge of the house. However, Saint Laurent grew increasingly disenchanted with working together with the more commercially inclined new owners of YSL.

Asked about this Monday, Berge provoked a storm of laughter by saying: "Mr Saint Laurent doesn't know what Tom Ford is doing. He doesn’t read fashion magazines."

"We had a separation," Berge continued. "When the deal established - on one side there was the haute couture and on the other the pret-a-porter. It was very clear to everyone that we weren't going to spend our time controlling each other, nor complain about what each other did. We had a separation... It was clear we weren’t going to spend our time shadowing our spouse to find out in what state of adultery he found himself."

Born in the Algerian port of Oran in 1936, Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint Laurent came from a wealthy French colonial family. His great-great-grandfather was the lawyer who drew up Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine's wedding contract.

In 1955, one year after sharing first prize in a prestigious International Wool Secretariat competition with Karl Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent was hired as a design assistant by Christian Dior. In 1957, Saint Laurent's meteoric career took off when he was appointed to succeed Dior, following the master's sudden death.

After great initial acclaim, the fashion pack turned on Saint Laurent in outraged reaction to his 1960 "Beat" collection, inspired by Paris street style. Conscripted into the French army in September of that year, the designer suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1961, he and his lover Berge founded their own house financed by American millionaire Mack Robinson. Throughout his career, Saint Laurent actively designed for ballet, opera and film, notably for actress Catherine Deneuve in Luis Bunuel film's "Belle de Jour."

Though his first collection received tepid reviews, he went on to take Paris by storm with his famed "Mondrian" dresses in 1965, the first of many designs inspired by modern art.

His fashion "family," Loulou de la Falaise, Betty Catroux and Clara Saint, were present Monday. The only member missing was his French bulldog Moujik III, whose predecessor was the subject of Andy Warhol's last portrait.

Saint Laurent's financial future was assured back in 1993, when Sanofi acquired YSL for $650 million.

In a statement, Pinault said he had always felt "a great admiration for his art and for the creative adventure that he, with the support of Pierre Berge, had led for half a century."

After Saint Laurent had exited, Catroux speculated to FWD that he might finally write his memoirs. "He can also finally do what he hasn't had the time to do for a long time -- party!"

However, the atmosphere was somber at Ave Marceau this morning, as the great couturier departed the salon.

"A great man has decided to retire," said the long-standing head of couture salon Helene de Ludinghausen. "Of course it's better that things didn't just peter out. That would have been wrong. But I have to say I'm very sad."

Fall 2007 (Photo by FW)

Menswear Fall 2007 (Photo by FW)

See the YSL Couture Runway shows by Yves Saint Laurent:

Website: www.ysl.com

Press Contact for
YVES SAINT LAURENT RIVE GAUCHE:
Stephan SUBRENAT
7, avenue George V
75008 PARIS
FRANCE
Tel: +33 1 56 62 64 00
Fax: +33 1 56 62 65 06

News about YSL:

Stefano Pilati on the runway Fall 2005

Tom Ford on the runway, Menswear Fall 2004 on his farewell show for YSL Rive Gauche

Books about Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent (The Universe of Fashion) [Buy this book now]

Yves Saint Laurent and Fashion Photography [Buy this book now!]

Yves Saint Laurent : 40 Years of Creation [Buy this book now!]