Yves Saint Laurent during his mentor Christian Dior's funeral! Sad man looking good in Dior

Yves Saint Laurent would spend two years working alongside Christian Dior, learning the secrets of haute couture from the master himself. Collections comprised of some two hundred designs would emerge from sketches, toiles, and fittings. Saint Laurent was first entrusted with decorating the boutiques. He also helped make a number haute couture dresses. Quickly earning Dior’s trust, he was given more and more responsibilities. “He taught me the essential,” Saint Laurent wrote in 1986. “Then came other influences that, because he had taught me the essential, blended into this essential and found it to be a wonderful and prolific terrain, the necessary seeds that would allow me to assert myself, grow strong, blossom, and finally exude my own universe."

At Dior, Yves Saint Laurent met people who would change his life. Anne-Marie Muñoz, who also worked in the studio, became a loyal friend and ongoing collaborator throughout his entire career. He also met the model Victoire Doutreleau, who would later participate in the opening of his haute couture house. He met the sculptors François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne when he was decorating the boutique at 15 rue François Ier, for which he also created greeting cards and special designs called “zinzins.” He would later collaborate with the couple and collect their work. During this period, he also met the dancer Zizi Jeanmaire and the choreographer Roland Petit, for whom he would later design numerous costumes and stage sets.

On October 24, 1957, Christian Dior died from a heart attack during a stay in Montecatini, Italy. According to his wishes, Yves Saint Laurent became his successor and was named artistic director of the haute couture house at the age of 21.

Although they did not yet know each other, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé were both present at Dior’s funeral. Bergé and his companion at the time, the painter Bernard Buffet, were close friends of the couturier. Bergé and Saint Laurent would not meet until a few months later.

While the world was still mourning the death of Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent only had a few months to prepare the Spring-Summer 1958 collection, which was scheduled to be presented on January 30. He flew to Oran, as he usually did when preparing the sketches he would show Dior. He created over six hundred drawings in fifteen days.

At 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, January 30, 1958, Yves Saint Laurent was about to present his first collection for Christian Dior. Everyone was impatient to see it, from the international press to Pierre Bergé, who was attending his first fashion show with Bernard Buffet. An hour later, there was a standing ovation. The press was in a state of euphoria, attempting to immortalize the debut of the “little prince of fashion,” while groups of admirers wept with joy.
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