Happy Jim Carroll's Birthday (Even Though He's A Person Who Died, Died In 2009)

It's also the birthday of Yves Saint Laurent!

Glenda, perpetual kitten, lolling on the pizza box, courtesy of our pal, Plain Marie

Happy Weekend!

None of the holidays for today are especially silly (National Girlfriend’s Day? BLAH), so we are instead going to celebrate the birthdays of Jim Carroll and Yves Saint Laurent, two people who I’m pretty certain have nothing in common with one another. Sorry, astrology believers!

As such, your first present is Jim Carroll performing “People Who Died” with Lou Reed!

Your second present is me going on about the artistic genius of Yves Saint Laurent for however many words, because I honestly just know a lot more about YSL than I do about Jim Carroll (yes, I saw The Basketball Diaries, but I was like, 12 or something at the time). You are welcome!

Yves Saint Laurent, the master of both haute couture and ready-to-wear, got his start at Dior, was an absolute prodigy and took over the fashion house at the age of 21 after Christian Dior died of a heart attack at 57. His first collection for Dior was the Trapeze Line, which expanded upon Dior’s A-Line and introduced, for the first time, the trapeze silhouette that seems to annoy the shit out of heterosexual men to this day. This, unlike his later work for Dior, was a major success (although that was likely because it was just too “edgy” for the brand — for instance, he was the first to bring a sort-of motorcycle jacket into the world of high fashion). He lasted just a few seasons there before getting the boot, in 1960, right after he was drafted into the Algerian War — although he didn’t even make it a month before the harassment from his fellow soldiers drove him into a military hospital for psychiatric care.

In 1962, he launched his own fashion house with his partner (business and romantical — Saint Laurent was openly gay in the fashion industry for decades, though he didn’t come out publicly until 1991) Pierre Bergé, with his first few collections garnering far more positive reviews than his later work at Dior did. However, it was his 1965 Mondrian Line — which lives on today in the form of tacky vinyl “mod” Halloween costumes — that really launched him as a designer to be reckoned with. YSL developed the line in collaboration with artist Piet Mondrian, based on his famous paintings. The originals, however, were not vinyl but made of wool and silk.

Behold!

The next year, he came out with the Le Smoking, a rather androgynous tuxedo for women, famously worn by French style icon and yé-yé singer, Françoise Hardy. Now, you might think that, for reasons of Marlene Dietrich, that this would not be a super huge deal, but it absolutely was. Many restaurants at the time barred women from entering while wearing trousers, and, at one point, socialite Nan Kempner was told by the maître d’ at La Côte Basque that they couldn’t let her in while wearing the pants from the suit, so she actually pulled them off in the middle of the restaurant and ate dinner in her suit jacket, with nothing on underneath. Good for her, eh?

If you’d like to know more about Saint Laurent, here is a documentary about him from 1991 — enjoy!

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