Trapeze - Yves Saint Laurent's First Collection for Dior
- Monet Brewerton-Palmer
- Dec 29, 2025
- 5 min read
Saint Laurent's Early Life & Career
Yves Saint Laurent was born on August 1, 1936 into an affluent family in Oran, Algeria. The oldest of three children, Yves displayed an interest in fashion and the arts from an early age. As a teenager, he was especially drawn to the theater.
Ostracized by his peers for his dreamy, artistic bent, Saint Laurent spent most of his free time sketching. He later recalled:
"Starting in secondary school, I began leading a double life. On the one hand, at home there was joy and the world I dreamed up in my drawings, sets, costumes, and theater; at Catholic school, on the other hand, there were tests and a world I was excluded from as a shy, thoughtful dreamer, one where my classmates made fun of me, terrorized me, and beat me up."
Yvonne Baby, Yves Saint Laurent au Metropolitan de New York. Portrait de l’artiste, Le Monde, December 8, 1983.
His sketches often took the form of costumes for theatrical productions. Saint Laurent was especially drawn to the work of Christian Berard, an artist known for his sketches of theater costumes and for fashion houses. Saint Laurent later credited Berard's work with "confirm[ing] [his] vocation." Yvonne Baby, Yves Saint Laurent au Metropolitan de New York. Portrait de l’artiste, Le Monde, December 8, 1983.
In 1953, Saint Laurent enrolled in a Paris-based fashion competition, where he won third prize in the gown category. During his stint in Paris, he met Michel de Brunhoff, the editor-in-chief of Vogue France, with whom he maintained a correspondence after returning to Algeria. (De Brunhoff was also a close friend of Christian Berard.)
In September 1954, Saint Laurent moved to Paris to study fashion at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. In June 1955, he showed Michel de Brunhoff about four dozen of his recent sketches. De Brunhoff was awestruck, writing to a friend, “I have never in my life met anyone more gifted." He predicted that this promising boy would grow “up to be a great man.” Letter of Michel de Brunhoff to Edmonde Charles-Roux, 1955.
Christian Dior & Yves Saint Laurent
Dr Brunhoff arranged for Saint Laurent to meet with Christian Dior at Dior's maison, and Dior hired him immediately. Saint Laurent and Dior worked together for the next two years. It was a relationship that transformed Saint Laurent's life and career. As Saint Laurent wrote in 1986, reflecting on his short time with Dior, “He taught me the essential… the necessary seeds that would allow me to assert myself, grow strong, blossom, and finally exude my own universe.”
For his part, Dior called Saint Laurent “an immense talent,” noting in a letter in summer 1957 that Saint Laurent was “the father” of about 20% of the designs in the house’s Spring-Summer 1957 collection. And he wanted the world to know about the talent under his roof. “I think the time has come to reveal it to the press. My prestige won’t suffer from it.” Letter of Christian Dior to Jacques Rouet, July 1957.
Only months later, in October 1957, Christian Dior died unexpectedly at the age of 52. As was Dior’s wish, Yves Saint Laurent took over as artistic director of the legendary fashion house. He was only 21 years old.
Origin & Presentation of the Trapeze Collection
There was little time for Saint Laurent to mourn the loss of his mentor: the house was scheduled to present its Spring-Summer 1958 collection on January 30, 1958. YSL retreated to his hometown, Oran, to sketch his ideas for the collection. He generated 600 sketches over the next two weeks. Saint Laurent returned to Paris in early December 1957. His friend and frequent collaborator Anne-Marie Munoz recalled, “In that first suitcase, there was everything.”
It was in this first collection that YSL debuted the trapeze dress silhouette, which was an amalgamation of the boxy 1920s silhouettes and the so-called wasp waist A-line designs for which Dior was known.
Saint Laurent's trapeze collection was a significant departure for the great house of Dior, which had become practically synonymous with the exaggeratedly feminine styles the house had popularized in the immediate postwar years. But it was a resounding success nonetheless.
The silhouette appeared in that collection in many forms: as a coat over the classic Dior wasp-waist dress; as semitransparent, pleated tulle over a structured underdress; as daytime dresses made of wool adorned with buttons or bows; and, most relevant to us, in the form of an exquisite embroidered dress that would have made a spectacular bridal piece, the L'Elephant Blanc dress.
As Vogue editor-in-chief Jessica Daves wrote in a March 1958 article, Fashion: Paris Collections:
“To begin with the Dior line: the narrow-shouldered bell-skirted dresses make a shape- a shape more beautiful than its name, ‘Trapeze.’ It is a swinging shape that appears for every hour of day or evening- in tweed, in chiffon, in linen, in sequins, in tulle.”
The collection received a standing ovation and glowing reviews from the press, which deemed YSL “the little prince of fashion.”
L'Elephant Blanc
The crown jewel in the trapeze collection was L'Elephant Blanc, an exquisitely embroidered scoop-neck dress designed to fall just below the knee.
It consists of a rigid, corseted underdress and a heavily embroidered tulle overdress, and is equal parts ethereal and ornate.
Today, the dress is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
YSL’s first collection for Dior is indisputably one of the most important fashion collections of the last 100 years. Its influence on the trends that would come to dominate the 1960s is unmistakable. The collection established Saint Laurent as a dominant force in the world of fashion, setting the stage for a career that would span another five decades. Saint Laurent’s pioneering trapeze silhouette was just the first of many firsts to come.