Halston and Saint Laurent were both very influential designers that had defined and dominated the era they lived. During the early period of their career, they shared some similarities, but as their own style matured, they became quite opposite to each other. Saint Laurent was considered a master of color with a style of drama and fantasy while Halston was described as a great modernist and minimalist. Also, they took different approaches while they were designing. Saint Laurent was obsessed with the ornamental style while Halston tried to develop his modernism and minimalism theory by pushing the cooperation with non-western cloth. What is more, they did not both see history as an important part of their inspiration resource. Saint Laurent considered history as an essential part of his design career while Halston preferred to do that in a lot narrower range. Although with all of these differences, they still have some quite undeniable similarities that were determined by the time they lived. The time made them sharing some themes of design such as menswear, exoticism, and historicism. Both of them had developed womenswear from men’s outfit.
In the exhibition “Yves Saint Laurent + Halston: Fashionng the 70s” displayed in the FIT Museum, we can see a set of men’s style womenswear that was designed by Saint Laurent and Halston. Since feminism grew a lot during 70s, it is really amazing to see how womenswear had changed over those years. As the main involvers of this revolutionary era, Saint Laurent and Halston launched their significant designs of men’s style womenswear. It was the moment of the history made them create that kind of design, but great designers like Saint Laurent and Halston was not only pushed by the trend of time, they drove it too.
As mentioned above, the movement of feminism inspired Saint Laurent and Halston to create their masculine womenswear. The feminism during 1970s was also known as the second wave of feminism. In the United Sates, this movement began in the 1960s and lasted till the early 1980s. While the first wave of feminism was more concern about the legal right of women, the second wave of feminism was more focused on various aspects of living and working condition women had. That can explain why the design of menswear for women has evolved so much, as both the market condition and historical condition were asking the new design for women in the new era. Actually, Saint Laurent and Halston were not the first one who put women in pants, not even the famous designer Coco Chanel. Women started to wear pants since the First World War. They did that because they had to take over their men’s job while they went to the war, but it was only for work or leisure purpose. During World War II, Coco Chanel launched a collection of trousers for women and the design soon got really popular in the whole society. What was different from the previous one is that Chanel used special cut and decors that fit women. Some people said that Chanel did not just put women in pants, she had made them loved it. Based on the achievement Coco Chanel had made, Saint Laurent and Halston expanded the field of menswear for women. They imported more elements of menswear in their design and their design was much bolder than anyone has ever done before. The outfits were not just the fashion appearance of the second wave of feminism, they also featured some key elements of the culture at that time. There was impossible that their design was not be loved. Let us take a closer look on some outfits displayed in the exhibition as examples.
In this picture, you can see three of the most famous designs by Saint Laurent, which were “safari”, “le smoking,” and “gangster”. From these outfits, we can still see the original version of menswear which the design was inspired by. When Saint Laurent was designing these clothes, he prefer to use a man’s approach to dress women rather than just simply introducing masculine elements. Therefore what came out was a master work of combining the feminine beauty and the new meaning of modern women. According to women who had experienced the era of Saint Laurent’s “le smoking” suit, the suit gave women a different feeling while wearing it, it changed women’s gesture. And the suit “gangster” and the African inspired collection “safari” also showed the new way of being sexy as a women.
Halston, however, was quite different when it came to his menswear for women collection. He believed that cloth should be unisex. Therefore his design of masculine suits for women were almost the same as what he wore in his daily life. Just like what was shown in the picture, trim pants, cashmere turtleneck, and a loosely cut jacket that goes with it. It is simple, chick, and a quite good example of his modernism and minimalism theory.
Halston was also famous for his shirtwaist dress. It was originally inspired by men’s shirt. The dress was made of a fabric ,that can be washed by machine, called Ultra-suede. The special texture of this material made this dress look classic and subtle. Halston also made the buttons started at the breastbone instead of the neckline. This detail added some sexy feeling to this design.
After seeing how Saint Laurent and Halston had been the masters of the feminism trend in their era. Let us see some other evidences that they were influenced by the time they lived. In this picture, there are two outfits that was designed by Saint Laurent and Halston. Both the golden suit by Saint Laurent and the halter bra, loosely cut trousers, and off-white shirt were all largely influenced by the hippie culture, which was dominant at that time.
The greatest fashion designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Halston do not just follow the trend of the society, furthermore, they get inspired by it, they explore in it, they start an era of theirs. What they did was more than creating cloth. How people dress and think could be changed by them. That is who you can call the master fashion designer of an era.
Cite Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie
http://bi.galegroup.com.libproxy.newschool.edu/essentials/article/GALE|A81505010/f2e48bd210b3c9b102515c79e1b9e3ef?u=nysl_me_newsch
http://bi.galegroup.com.libproxy.newschool.edu/essentials/article/GALE|A137151759/1de931382c396c6a008c94d4a3c445ed?u=nysl_me_newsch
Photos from “Yves Saint Laurent + Halston: Fashioning the 70s” Exhibition
Photos from “Faking It” Exhibition
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