Yves Saint Laurent

About the house

The house began in Paris as a partnership between the designer Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and sources differ on whether that was 1961 or 1962. Bergé was the long-time partner who ran the business side, overseeing ready-to-wear and licensed products. Perfume came through a different company. Charles of the Ritz held the perfume business and, by one French account, sold the couture side back to Saint Laurent and Bergé in 1972 while keeping cosmetics and fragrance.

Rive Gauche for women and Pour Homme for men were launched together, tied to the Rive Gauche ready-to-wear boutique in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Rive Gauche itself was composed in 1969 by the perfumers Jacques Polge and Michael Hy. Perfume Shrine's critic calls it a "mysteriously blue floral, yet non romantic". It has been reformulated several times, including by Daniela Andrier and Jacques Hy at Givaudan in 2003, and one critic says it was "savagely altered" along the way.

Opium followed, an oriental-spicy women's fragrance created by Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac. Designer Pierre Dinand based its red container on Japanese inro cases. The name drew objections from Chinese American groups in the United States, and a later advertising campaign brought more than 700 complaints.

A company history records that in 1986 Saint Laurent and Bergé bought Charles of the Ritz from Squibb for about US $500 million. In January 1993 the company agreed to be acquired by the pharmaceutical group Sanofi. The brand was later bought by the group now called Kering, and L'Oréal acquired the cosmetics line YSL Beauty in 2008.