Yves Saint Laurent

Founded in 1961 by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge, the house emerged from the brilliance of a young prodigy who had already led Christian Dior, and who would go on to reshape the wardrobe of the modern woman.

In 1966 Saint Laurent unveiled Le Smoking, the tuxedo suit for women, a garment that scandalised and then liberated, handing women the authority and allure of menswear and changing the language of dressing forever.

His genius was cultural fluency: the Mondrian shift dress turned modern art into fashion, while the safari jacket, the pea coat and the jumpsuit translated the everyday into the iconic.

Saint Laurent was also the first couturier to embrace ready-to-wear as an art form, opening Rive Gauche in 1966 and democratising Parisian elegance for a new generation of independent women.

Today the house remains a byword for sharp, sensual, intellectual Parisian glamour, where the tension between the masculine and the feminine continues to define an enduring vision of power and seduction.