Obsession: YSL Archives Online

Above: Outfits from the Spring/Summer 1989 collection. All images are from the Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent. Fall fw aw ss

The internet is good for many things, but one area where it falls short is with designer fashion archives. Sure, there's a mini army of people on The Fashion Spot who tirelessly scan and share images, but as far as we know (do let us know if we're wrong) there's no comprehensive place to go online for collection archives, and even if you know the specific collection you're after tracking down the images can still be very difficult, if not impossible.

The problem is there's not much of a commercial incentive for anyone to post archive images of old collections online (unless fashion houses suddenly decide giving people easy access to their history online might boost their image and publicity - and in many cases we don't think they'd be mistaken) and the emphasis in fashion is always very much on the new, new, new all the time, which is a pity because we love looking back at fashion archives, but realistically never seem to have the time to go and research in museums and libraries.

Enough grumbling, though, and some good news that we just discovered: The Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent has got comprehensive online photo archives of Saint Laurent's collections from 1962 to 2002, as well as other resources and information about the late designer and the fondation formed by his lover and business partner, Pierre Bergé. Saint Laurent's collections were often vast (Haute Couture shows now tend to be over within about 10 minutes, while YSL ones used to last for 30 minutes or more) and the site does not include the full sets of photos for each collection, but it's definitely better than nothing and offers a wonderful insight into the collections of arguably the most important, and certainly one of the most talented, fashion designers of the 20th Century.

Click HERE to browse the fondation's website and collection archives, or scroll down to see our selection. Be warned - serious fashion porn coming up!

Spring/Summer 1962:

Autumn/Winter 1962:

Spring/Summer 1965:

Autumn/Winter 1965:

Spring/Summer 1966:

Autumn/Winter 1966:

Spring/Summer 1968:

Autumn/Winter 1968:

Spring/Summer 1969:

Autumn/Winter 1970:

Autumn/Winter 1973 (left) & Spring/Summer 1974 (right):

Autumn/Winter 1976:

Spring/Summer 1977:

Autumn/Winter 1977:

Spring/Summer 1979:

Autumn/Winter 1979:

Autumn/Winter 1981:

Spring/Summer 1982 (left) & Autumn/Winter 1982 (right):

Spring/Summer 1983:

Autumn/Winter 1984:

Spring/Summer 1985:

Autumn/Winter 1985:

Spring/Summer 1986:

Autumn/Winter 1987:

Spring/Summer 1988:

Autumn/Winter 1988:

Autumn/Winter 1989:

Spring/Summer 1991:

Spring/Summer 1992:

Spring/Summer 1995:

Spring/Summer 1997 (left) & Autumn/Winter 1999 (right):



See more at fondation-pb-ysl.net. For fellow vintage YSL obsessives, we also recommend this post on Luxirare (HERE) - Luxirare is a very well done blog that combines beautiful photography of haute cuisine and high fashion (odd combo but it really works), and the très chic blogger behind it recently did a post about YSL and how he continues to influence a lot of what desingers do today.

Related Hapsical Posts:

Yves Saint Laurent 1992 Documentary
Yves Saint Laurent's Paris Apartment
Yves Saint Laurent Jardin Majorelle, Marrakech