The China List: Yves Saint Laurent, Fashion
Wallpaper* and China’s Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development Fund (CHSDF) present China By Design—a celebration of Chinese cultural heritage and the many global creatives who have been inspired by it.
![Two images of female models walking the runway](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/RDj7DtFAus6DGcEFMMCvj6-415-80.jpg)
Even though the French designer never visited China, ‘Yves had loved Asian art since seeing the zen temples in Kyoto in the 1960s and collected antique Chinese objets at rue de Babylone,’ writes Alice Rawsthorn in her 1996 biography. He was entranced by its mythology, translating his Oriental daydreams into his seminal 1977 Imperial China-inspired Les Chinoises haute-couture collection, featuring lustrous cone hats, glossy qipao jackets, brocade and tassel embellishments. The collection also launched the maison’s controversially named fragrance Opium. Additionally, it formed the basis of the 2018 ‘Dreams of the Orient’ exhibition at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Paris.
Sketch by Yves Saint Laurent
Tom Ford took the creative reigns of Yves Saint Laurent from 1999-2004. For his final A/W 2004 collection for the maison, he paid tribute to the pagoda-shoulder silhouette of the iconic 1977 collection. His own interpretation of Yves Saint Laurent’s vision of China, Ford’s finale included seductive and satin-saturated forms, slinky qipaos, pagoda-shoulder ‘Le Smoking’ jackets, lucky-red scalloped dresses and fur coats shaved like dragon scales.
Yves Saint Laurent, 1986
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
-
Take off: Mathieu Lehanneur's Olympic Cauldron rises into the Parisian night sky
The Paris 2024 Olympics’ opening ceremony was closed with a soaring cauldron spectacle that will go down in history
By Hugo Macdonald Published
-
Phaidon’s new Graphic Classics is a lavish greatest hits of graphic design
Graphic Classics is a compendium of seven centuries of visual culture, from the everyday and ephemeral to visionary works that reshaped our world
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Birley Chocolate hits the sweet ’n’ chic spot in London’s Chelsea
The new Birley Chocolate shop, a sibling to Birley Bakery, is a confection of colour as delicious as its finely crafted goods
By Melina Keays Published