Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent founded his label in 1962 and spent the next decades rewriting what high fashion could do. In 1965 his Mondrian Collection hit so hard that mass manufacturers immediately churned out cheap versions, proof the idea had escaped the runway. A year later came "Le Smoking," the tuxedo suit for women that refused to apologize for its sharpness. He pulled from non-European cultures, cast models the industry had ignored, and somehow made elegance feel modern instead of stuffy. By 1983 the Met gave him a solo show while he was still alive - a first for a fashion designer. Caroline Milbank said in 1985 that he'd spent twenty-five years as the most influential name in the business, the one who revived couture after the sixties and made ready-to-wear serious. He kept working, kept the honors coming, and in 2007 France named him Grand officier de la Légion d'honneur, two years before he died.