Rosie Scott Blog about Women

From the Mondrian dresses to the original Le Smoking suit, the UK’s first ever exhibition on designer Yves Saint Laurent is coming to County Durham this July and is set to feature over 50 of iconic designer’s best-known garments.

Curated by The Bowes Museum and the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, ‘Style Is Eternal’ will showcase pieces from the late designer's tenure as creative director of Christian Dior, as well as styles from his own label.

The man who invented most of our favourite ready-to-wear staples (the trench coat, women’s tailoring and the jumpsuit, to name a few) has a rich archive of work to be mined for the display. Here’s what we’re most looking forward to from the exhibition…

The Russian Collection

Inspired by the costume designs for Sergei Diaghilev’s early 20th-century Ballets Russes, Yves Saint Laurent’s 1976 ‘Russian’ collection was at the time tipped as one of the greatest fashion collections ever. Watch the incredible archive footage here.

The Mondrian Dresses

Fashion and art collided literally for the first time in 1965 when Yves Saint Laurent showed six cocktail mini dresses to his haute couture audience. There’s so much to say if you go fashion forensic on this one – note the simple lines of both the dress and the artwork, the block colouring, the idea that the body can be a canvas. Got it?

The First ‘Le Smoking’ Trouser Suit

Ahh Le Smoking! One of Yves Saint Laurent’s greatest legacies will forever be the moment he decided to cut men’s tailoring for a woman’s body in 1966. How did no one ever think of it before?!

The Safari Jacket

The first designer to turn utility wear into catwalk creations, Yves Saint Laurent debuted the safari jacket in 1968, initially as a one-off piece worn by model of the moment Veruschka. How many copycat khakis have you seen since? Every single one was inspired by this image.

The Jumpsuit

In 1968, Saint Laurent even gave us the fashion-forward jumpsuit a future wardrobe staple that every woman would be forever grateful for.