Pantsuit
By 1970, variable skirt lengths had only engendered the impatience of women buying couture and ready-to-wear clothing. Pants provided a viable alternative and surcease from further slides of skirts up and down the leg. Saint Laurent was the couturier most ready to offer pants, having systematically presented them, first as part of his smoking ensembles, since the mid-1960s. In the 1970s, Saint Laurent would explore Chinese, Russian, and Gypsy pretexts for pants, establishing an authoritative iconography of women empowered in pants.
Artwork Details
- Title: Pantsuit
- Design House: Yves Saint Laurent (French, founded 1961)
- Designer: Yves Saint Laurent (French (born Algeria) Oran 1936–2008 Paris)
- Date: spring/summer 1970
- Culture: French
- Medium: (a) wool, wood; (b) wool
- Credit Line: Gift of Mireille Levy, 1984
- Object Number: 1984.163.4a, b
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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