Today’s visit to the Yves St. Laurent show brought me pain in two ways:

#1 — That I could never be as good a designer as he.  Face facts.  He invented everything:  Sportswear (Ensembles don’t have to match).  Leather jackets for women (inspired by Marlon Brando and beatniks).  Pants suits (Yes, Dietrich and Hepburn wore them in the movies but Yves brought them to everyday life.)  Power suits (Remember those soft bowties as a substitute for a man’s tie when women were trying to break through the glass ceiling?)  Safari jackets (An anti-war, anti-hunting statement).  Transparency (Today if you see a bra or a brastrap through a chiffon top, no one cares.)  Tunic and tights (His contribution to the youth culture of the 1960s.  And we’re still wearing them today).  Jumpsuits (Ditto.)  And my personal favorite — Art in clothing (I made and wore a Mondrian dress in high school and had no idea it was a YSL knock off).

#2 — That he is dead.  He died in June 2008, a month before my last visit when I also saw his retrospective at the Fondation created by his longtime partner, Pierre Berge.  We will not see the like of him again.  Today’s designers are mostly corporate prostitutes.  Yves was his own man.  And a beautiful man too.  From his youth to when he was old and sick.

We could only examine his garments without touching them.  Looking at them as closely as I could without tripping the alarms brought me new insights and gave me two vows.  I vow to plough new ground and not borrow from what he already created.  And to make clothes that women want today.  And I vow to continue perfecting the skills his atelier did so well whether in couture or ready to wear.  I bought the 300+ page show catalog.  You’ll love it.

One picture shows 1980s supermodel Carla Bruni wearing a “Picasso” wedding dress.  She helped curate the show.  That’s because she married some guy named Sarkozy and is now first lady of France.