Couture 1960s YSL YvesSaintLaurent Abstract Sheer Silk CrepeDeChine Pareo Cape

In 1972, Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berger retired the blue-border label when they bought out the U.S. company’s interests since benefitting from the popularity of the prestige-market fragrances, along with the success of their internationally expanding boutiques, whose initial Parisian retail store in 1966 had been the first in the city under the name of a couturier. In the 1980s, the blue-bordered Yves Saint Laurent tag was revived for less expensive clothing diffusion labels with additional text that identified them, such as “foulards”, “variation” or “pour homme”.

Since the designer introduced shocking sheer chiffon clothing beginning with a 1966 collection, we suspect that our see-through piece was made around that time in the late 1960s.

With a bright pink border, the painted silk’s organically-shaped abstract imagery evokes flowers with additional colors of lavender, lime, orange and yellow. Perhaps the image is an homage to a favored contemporary British “color-field” painter, like the designer did for a number of artists whose work he collected–starting with the haute-couture Mondrian collection in 1965.

The pristine-condition fabric also still retains its black materials/production/care tag that reads “Made In Italy/pure silk” in Italian, French, English and German (no other language). During the ownership of Charles of the Ritz, Yves Saint Laurent likewise had his men’s silk ties produced in Italy with the tag reading “Yves Saint Laurent Paris” like his initial couture-clothing tag for women.