Posts tagged "yves saint laurent"

Iman and Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, 1982.

Photo by Peter Turnley.

Yves Saint Laurent with Eunice W. Johnson in the 1980s, was one of the first designers to allow his fashions to be used in the pioneering Ebony Fashion Fair shows.

Yves Saint Laurent with Eunice W. Johnson in the 1980s, was one of the first designers to allow his fashions to be used in the pioneering Ebony Fashion Fair shows.

When I design and craft my dresses, I need a living model, a moving body. I could never work with a mere wooden dummy because for me clothes must live. I need to work with a woman’s body before sending out my clothes into the real world. Black models are graced with particulary (sic) modern proportions and motions. They are perfectly suited to my needs and have always inspired me enormously. I love the luminosity they lend to fabrics. I feel the depth of colour of their skin brings added intensity to colours. They have never disappointed me. I love their expression, the lustre in their eyes, their long lines and the irresistible suppleness of their movements. For me they possess that most magical of a woman’s qualities: mystery. Not the outworn mystery of the “femme fatale” but the dynamic mystery of the woman of today.