‘All she had to do was come on stage and everything burst into life, fire and flames’ — Yves Saint Laurent on Zizi Jeanmaire
The YSL wardrobe of the impossibly chic Parisian ballerina, chanteuse and fashion muse is offered online until 26 January
Every fashion designer has his or her muse. Yves Saint Laurent, who revolutionised womenswear with the female trench coat, tuxedo, pantsuit, safari jacket and jumpsuit — and whose art collection, assembled with his partner Pierre Bergé, sold for nearly €374 million at Christie’s in Paris in 2009 — had several.
Victoire Doutreleau, Betty Catroux, Loulou de la Falaise and Mounia are among the most frequently mentioned. Yet Zizi Jeanmaire, the ballerina and chanteuse known for her pixie cut and enviably long legs, who led the applause after Saint Laurent’s first show under his own name in 1962, was no less a part of his inner circle.