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# Adieu, Yves Saint Laurent
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/adieu-yves-saint-laurent/
- Published: 2008-06-06T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:12:25.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Mariel Howsepian West Dressed*

AFTER A YEAR-LONG BATTLE WITH brain cancer, Yves Saint Laurent, 71, died Sunday night. He had been the last of the generation of designers that made Paris the fashion capital of the world.

To fulfill my foreign language requirement in high school, I had the option of taking Japanese, German, Spanish, or French. Although Spanish would have been the practical choice, I went with French.

For as long as I could remember, I had listened to my mother telling stories about how, before I was born, before she was married to my father, she back-packed through Europe, eating bread and cheese and sleeping in doorways.

My favorite story of hers is about the night she met a Frenchman named Michel. He had just seen “Saturday Night Fever,” and struck up a conversation with my mother about John Travolta’s dance moves.

When Michel asked my mother where she was staying and she said “in doorways,” he insisted she spend the night at his apartment. He would sleep on the floor. “No, no,” she said. She would sleep on the floor. He couldn’t have that. They came to the compromise that they would share the bed, my mother sleeping under the covers, Michel sleeping on top of the covers.

Before dawn, Michel took my mother to the Champs-Elysees for her very first croissant and her very first cappuccino, and the sun rising over Pharaoh Ramses II’s obelisk at the Place de la Concorde.

When my mother tells the story, she pronounces croissant “crwahs-sa.” On the occasion that she orders a coffee, she asks for a cappuccino, and is almost always handed a cup that is too heavy. “Excuse me, but this cappuccino has too much milk,” she’ll say, sending it back to be remade.

The barista will roll their eyes, thinking, “I made it to corporate regulations,” not understanding that this drink is important. This drink has the power to dissolve time, to melt the present into the past.

I loved learning French. I loved the way the words felt in my mouth. “Bon jour. Je suis un ananas.” (This isn’t the most useful phrase, considering it translates to “Hello, I am a pineapple.”) My junior and senior years of high school, I hung out with kids who wore tweed pants and thrift store wingtips. We ordered cups of coffee at cafes that played jazz on record players. We published an underground newspaper using pseudonyms. We were ‘90s beatniks, and we had no idea that we owed Yves Saint Laurent a “merci” for making beatnik chic.

In 1960, Yves Saint Laurent was working for Dior. He elevated beatnik to haute couture with a Spring/Summer collection that included motorcycle jackets and turtleneck sweaters.

My first visit to the fashion capital was in high school.

I was 15, on an educational tour called The European Kaleidoscope. Although we only spent three days in France, it was long enough to make friends with my inner-French girl.

Debra Ollivier, author of the book “Entre Nous,” writes, “the French girl understands that she only needs a few high-quality items and careful accents to reflect her unique sensibility.”

She owns only the perfect little black dress, the perfect sweater, the perfect white blouse.

The French girl thinks about quality — never quantity. According to Ollivier, “she’d rather wear the same dress three days in a row if it works for her, than three different things that just don’t feel right.”

Unfortunately, my inner-French girl and my outer-American girl lost touch. On more than one occasion, I have pulled a baseball cap over my unwashed hair, and if it’s chilly, I might reach for my Notre Dame (university, not cathedral) sweatshirt.

After all, I am only a pineapple.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 6, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/060608.pdf?ref=smdp.com)