Fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent dies at 71

French fashion legend Yves Saint Laurent, who changed the silhouette of 20th century woman with a daring new dress code, has died aged 71.
The reclusive Saint Laurent died at his Paris home of a brain tumour late Sunday after a prolonged illness and is to be buried Thursday, said his long-time partner Pierre Berge.
Mentally and physically frail through most of his life, the bespectacled Saint Laurent retired from haute couture in 2002 after a four decade career in which he dressed the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Paloma Picasso, Bianca Jagger and Lauren Bacall.
"I am shattered," said Berge, who founded the iconic YSL fashion house in 1961 with the designer, then 25.
As tributes poured in from around the world to the tormented but visionary genius, Berge said women around the world owed Saint Laurent a debt for revolutionising their wardrobes.
"He was the first to put women in pants, the first to put them in tuxedos, the first to put them in masculine clothes, the first to employ black models," he said. "He was audacious, he revolutionised the trade."
"One of the greatest names of fashion has disappeared, the first to elevate haute couture to the rank of art," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose wife Carla Bruni is another Saint Laurent devotee.
"Yves Saint Laurent infused his label with his creative genius, elegant and refined personality, discreet and distinguished," said Sarkozy in a statement.
British designer Vivienne Westwood described him as "one of the great couturiers, one of the few who have achieved perfection with everything they touched."
One of a trio of great designers who dominated 20th century fashion, with Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent was born in Oran, Algeria, on August 1, 1936, when the North African country was a still French territory.
A shy lonely child born to a well-off family, he was taunted over his homosexuality and became fascinated by clothes.
He arrived in Paris in 1953, aged 17, with a portfolio of sketches and quickly persuaded Vogue editor Michel de Brunhoff to publish the images.
The following year Saint Laurent won three of the four categories in a Paris design competition -- the fourth went to his rival Karl Lagerfeld, now at Chanel.
De Brunhoff advised Christian Dior to hire him and he rapidly became heir apparent to the great couturier, taking over the house when Dior died suddenly three years later.
However in 1960, Saint Laurent was called up to fight in his native Algeria, where an independence war was under way.
Less than three weeks later he won an exemption on health grounds after suffering a nervous breakdown, but when he returned to Paris Dior had already replaced him with Marc Bohan.
With Berge, Saint Laurent successfully sued Dior for breach of contract and cash in hand struck out on his own, with Berge taking care of the business side.
Saint Laurent's success lay in the harmony he achieved between body and garment -- what he called "the total silence of clothing."
He was also in the right place at the right time, launching the era of the celebrity lifestyle in homes in Paris and Marrakesh where he mixed with the Jaggers, US-French socialite Betty Catroux or aristocratic muse, Loulou de la Falaise.
His collections took their inspiration from artists Picasso, Andy Warhol or Mondrian, and he was often seen in the company of ballet star Rudolf Nureyev and Warhol.
Founding his own house when pop culture and the youth market were on the rise, there was a new appetite for the originality of his slinky tuxedo suits see-through blouses and safari jackets.
His name and the YSL logo became synonymous with all the latest trends, highlighted by the creation of the Rive Gauche ready-to-wear label and perfume, as well as licensing deals for accessories and perfumes.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he set the pace for fashion worldwide, opening up the Japanese market and then expanding to South Korea and Taiwan.
But Saint Laurent's career was not without controversy. In 1971 a collection modelled on the styles of World War II Paris was slammed by some American critics, and his launch in the mid 1970s of a perfume called "Opium" brought accusations that he was condoning drug use.
Fellow designer Christian Lacroix said no other design great could touch Saint Laurent's versatility.
"Chanel, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga and Dior all did extraordinary things. But they worked within a particular style," he explained. "Yves Saint Laurent is much more versatile, like a combination of all of them."
In his later years the depression that haunted him all his life became more oppressive, and at his farewell bash in 2002 Saint Laurent admitted to having recourse to "those false friends which are tranquillisers and narcotics."