Yves Saint Laurent: The Man was Haute

It was 1968 at Manhattan's La Cote Basque where Nan Kempner removed her pants and wore only a short tunic as a dress after the restaurant refused to let her enter in "menswear." At the time it was hard to determine which was worse, the pants or the mini skirt. But it was very easy to see that a revolution in women's fashion (and attitudes) was under way; and Kempner's inspired moment epitomized the new mentality. The only thing more inspiring was the artistic genius bold enough to design the pants suit for a woman - Yves Saint Laurent (YSL). Saint Laurent revolutionized women's fashion, as displayed in the forty-year retrospective of his work at the DeYoung museum in San Francisco, where he is hailed as "the most influential designer of the second half of the 20^th Century."

An Algerian-born French designer, Yves Saint Laurent began his career in fashion as head designer for House of Dior at an early age of 21. He was the first French couturier to design ready to wear clothing and created the tuxedo (pants) suit for women. His customers and muses included Catherine Deneuve, Iman and Naomi Campbell. Unlike designers of today, who rework classic pieces to fit modern styles, YSL was a creator of new concepts in fashion. In 2002 Saint Laurent retired from designing and in June 2008 he died of brain cancer-just five days after this exhibit opened at the Montreal Museum of Art.

When you first walk in you're greeted by a gigantic portrait of the designer, wearing his signature Clark Kent frames, almost evoking the same shy and humble demeanor. But as soon as you make a left you realize that he's more like Superman when he sits down to sketch. The exhibit is laid out in four sections, beginning at Masterful Pencil Stroke, where you can see how a piece goes from concept, via sketches (equipped with notes from the man himself) to actual garment. Though exciting and beautiful I was a little tired of the drab black and white palette after about nine garments. Except for a kiwi colored fox fur coat that screams Japanese fashion of the 21^st Century, and a pink evening gown with a deep plunging neckline from the Spring-Summer '91 collection, this portion of the exhibit was void of color-a deliberate stark contrast to prepare you for the main gallery. Heed the curator's instructions to take the grand stairs instead of the elevator so that you experience the exhibit in the right sequence.

The main gallery is The Palette, and oh what a palette it is. I wanted color, and I got color-at times too much of it. This is the biggest room and the largest part of the exhibit, where anything goes. This room is a mix of evening gowns that pay homage to YSL's favorite painter Pablo Picasso, as well as Van Gogh and Braque, cocktail dresses from the 1960's, Moroccan influenced styles and a display from his Opium line. The mod dresses reminiscent of Twiggy's supermodel days were some of my favorites; as mod is on trend today. "It's all about inspiration...from foreign cultures, from art," said the exhibit's curator Jill B'Alessandro in a phone conversation. She described the main gallery as "overwhelmed with color." To me it was more like a crayon box, and not the basic colored box, but the extended version that includes hues like aqua-marine and magenta.

The main gallery also houses a big screen television that lets you watch fashion show highlights from the days when these clothes premiered on the runway. Naomi Campbell in the kiwi fur coat, and an imaginary voyage to mother Africa using only African models (a big move when black and African models were not sought after for high fashion) seemed to hold people's attention. Watching the big screen is a nice change from looking at the clothes on white mannequins, as clothing looks nicer on actual human forms.

Behind the screen is what I assumed to be the untouchables-pieces too worthy to be breathed on, encased in glass. It was here that I spotted my favorite piece of the entire exhibit-from the 1963 Spring-Summer collection: an evening dress embroidered with sequins, beads and rhinestones, which looks as if it had been made with expensive carp (yes fish!) leather. Crafted with the contours of a woman's body in mind, the slim fit dress would hit right at my knee, and the mix of bluish and metallic colors would compliment my skin tone perfectly. I'd only wished it had a plunging back to give it a little more sex appeal, but it was pretty sexy as it was designed. I would have touched it (or maybe even tried to leave with it) had it not been in the case-smart move by the curator.

The exhibit, which is open until April (so hurry up and go see it!), has become more popular since the late designer's death. It's been requested in Australia, Berlin and other countries, and will open in Paris next. So it wasn't surprising that so many people were there in the middle of a Thursday afternoon-but what was surprising was the range of ages present-specifically some elementary school girls all "fabulously" (their mother teased) dressed in school uniforms. One 11-year-old girl said she knew all about Yves Saint Laurent before seeing the exhibit and professed that she loves fashion. Her mother, who took them to the exhibit at their request, confirmed, saying that her daughter even has a Project Runway sketch book. So it seems Saint Laurent, even in his death, continues to influence possible up and coming designers.

Saint Laurent's influence on today's fashion industry is apparent throughout the exhibit, from a 1981 black taffeta evening gown that looks like a hybrid of Victor & Rolf and Alexander McQueen (think Goth) to a 1960's Safari Jacket a la Derek Lam at Bergdorf's. Or the way "YSL is so Marc Jacobs!" as one patron exclaimed. When Saint Laurent shucked the usual dress suit and introduced pantsuits and tuxedos as everyday women's wear, they were struck down symbols of male power. The satin tuxedo jackets, paired with Bermuda shorts and laced up tops are evidence that these pieces could be feminized. "You can wear this stuff today," one woman said as she looked at The YSL Revolution.

While at times the exhibit was overwhelming-honestly how many clothes can you look at in one visit-and some displays were odd (a lone gaudy diamond, ruby and pearl necklace in a case that you weren't sure the designer created) the exhibit was an amazing recap of the work Yves Saint Laurent had accomplished before his retirement in 2002.

Decades prior to this, in a Proust personality test, when asked what would you like to do at that moment, the designer responded: "Go away, go away for a long time without doing anything in particular, forget everything, and then come back to see if I still want to make dresses."

We don't know if he went away, but make dresses he did, beautiful ones-even into a new millennium. And magnificently crafted pants suits, too. As someone devoted to the "avatars of change," Yves Saint Laurent was both a respondent as well as a catalyst for it in the 1960s. It was a time when burning one's bra meant no longer accepting the place in society given to women. It was a time when the Civil Rights Movement was changing the role of African Americans in this country and the feminist movement was changing the role of women. It was a time when women began to discover that they could have it all-that they could remove their pants and traipse around in a mini skirt if they wanted, but keep both to wear later.