YSL Yves Saint Laurent

The house and designer are often abbreviated as YSL. Laurent's career in fashion began at the tender age of 17, when he served as assistant to Christian Dior. With Dior's death four years later, Laurent was named head of the house of Dior at just 21 years of age. Still a young man when the Algerian War of Independence broke out, Laurent was drafted into the army in 1960 and lost his position at Dior. Military service and despair over the loss of his design position resulted in a hospital stay. After a brief period of recuperation, Laurent started his own fashion company and went on to become one of the most influential fashion designers of the 1960s and 1970s.