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The best suit that you ever had

Y

ves Saint Laurent used to said: For a woman adinner jacket is indispensable, it makes her feel

forever elegant. The tuxedo is style, not fashion.

Fashion comes and goes, style lasts for ever.

Since his arrival to Paris, at the age of 17, he

showed his enormous talent. Fashion lover since hewas a child, he came to the French capital city

with his desings under his arm, wich have beenpresented to Michel de Brunhoff, director ofParisian version of the magazine Vogue. This last one hadnt no doubt about the

publication of this sketchs. Shortly after, he met Christian Dior, with whom started to work

under his directions in 1954. He became in his right hand, until the death of the Frenchdesigner in 1957. After that unlucky event, he started to be the Creative Director of the

company.

This talented Algerian-French designer has had the extraordinary ability, as Lucien

Franois has writen, to give an aristocratic allure to the fads of this time. So, in addition

to the bomber jacket (1960) and the sahariana jacket (1968), he bought out the dinner jacket

for ladies, turning it into a milestone of 20

th

century style. It was 1966 when Saint Laurentfirst showed off the female tuxedo. The first brave enought to wear it were Betty

Catroux, a French icon of chic androgynous style and the stylists muse, and NancyKempner. A scandal ensued: Catroux was booed when she

appeared at the Opera in a tux. Nancy Kempner was denied

entry to the New York restaurant Cte Basque. Faced withwhat it believed to be a provocation, the media spoke of a

new George Sand style. But despite these hiccups, the

dinner jacket, a classic of male elegance of the 20 th century,

quickly entered the hearts, not to mention the wardrobes, ofthousand of women, including Catherine Deneuve, who

says: the advantage of the tux is that it has both male andfemale traits. After just a few months LOfficiel decreed:evening trousers are the order of the day; Vogue Paris

wrote: the women most in the limelight in Paris and in New

York have now adopted the female dinner jacket.

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The tuxedo had previously made a muted and sporadic appearance in the wardrobes

of non.conformist intellectuals and stars with ambivalent images, like Colette or MarleneDietrich, who commissioned her famous texedos drom Hollywood couturiers Watson &

Son. Its loved by Catherine Deneuve, Liza Minelli, Lou Lou de la Falaise, Lauren Bacall

and Bianca Jagger.

But it was thanks to Yves Saint Laurent that the female dinner jacket became a

classic. It has been re-interpreted on a regular basis by a large number of designers. Todaythe Pierre Berg/Yves Saint Laurent foundation has dedicated an exhibition called

Smoking forever to the tuxedo and its infinite reincarnations. All the women are deeply

grateful with YSL, who gave us an eternal suit, chic, sexy and forever classic.