Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – This August 2025, Yves Saint Laurent’s futuristic dress inspired by Piet Mondrian’s painting will turn sixty years old since it was introduced in the 1965 Fall/Winter Haute Couture Collection. The Collection attracted attention with its avant-garde style, so the press spontaneously described it as revolutionary. And even after all this time, the original model of this design remains a pure art form, transformed from a Mondrian painting into a piece of clothing. Versions of this dress are in prestigious world museums.
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – Mondrian`s Neoplasticism
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – In a mature creative phase, searching for the essence of painting, the Dutch abstractionist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) achieved absolute linearity. He painted horizontal and vertical black lines on white canvas, with quadrangles of primary colors (black, blue, and yellow) and gray tones. Square or rectangular surfaces are in between black stripes on a white background. The painting exudes a harmony of contrasts that is at the same time an expression of balance, despite the tension of dynamic forces. Mondrian called this graphic language Neoplasticism.
Piet Mondrian, 1930, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, oil on canvas, 45 × 45 cm. The Art Museum Zurich.
Bold colors, clear defining lines of separation, and simple forms became the Signature style of Mondrian between 1920 and 1930.
By influencing younger artists, Mondrian’s Neoplasticism transcended boundaries worldwide. These recognizable geometric abstractions have also found their way into fashion, architecture, and applied art. The Dutch artists’ movement De Stijl (The Style) strongly inspired Bauhaus. Thus, it actually influences the shaping of modernist aesthetics in the 20th century.
Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) left Algeria for Paris to work for Christian Dior. And after the chef died in 1957, Laurent became his successor, world’s youngest couturier at the age of 21. Then, in 1960, he left Dior to go his own way.
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – In the 1960s, the “Swinging Sixties” era, a more liberal lifestyle and modern culture were on the horizon. The spirit of youth anti-conservatism from the streets of London conquered the whole world. I myself lived pop, rock, and mini fashion in my teenage years. And Yves Saint Laurent, then 29 years old, broke with decadent fashion, embracing the new wave, and turned to creating clothes for the modern woman. Because he supposed that the teenage girl who despised her mother’s house dresses, as a self-conscious woman, would completely change the concept of clothing. After leaving the school uniform, she needs clothes for an employee. Also, in late afternoons, the modern woman will need an elegant yet practical dress. With the rare occasions for formal evening dress, he knew, it would take a long time for its new popularity.
In the spring of 1965, already in the stage of finalizing the map for the fall/winter show, with about a hundred sketched models, the designer was still looking for something better. Then he found a key idea in a book about Mondrian’s painting. Delighted by a burst of inspiration and a clear vision at the last moment, he changed the entire concept. He loved the simplicity and functionality of the straight dress, but then it clicked with him how its simple shape is suitable for combining colors. The key idea was to apply Mondrian’s concept of abstract blocks of color to the flat cut of the little dress.
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – In 1965, a fusion of two artistic visions
It happened when the fashion world met the Mondrian dress. During the presentation of Saint Laurent’s Fall/Winter 1965 Collection at Paris Fashion Week. Her rise to fame began with six straight color-block cocktail dresses inspired by Piet Mondrian’s painting, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow. Switching from canvas to dress, he went to a three-dimensional shape and created a series of variations on Mondrian’s work.
The initial concept features variants in construction modeling with color accents from Mondrian’s abstract paintings. It was immediately clear that the original idea had started a real fashion revolution.
This small series of clothing sets became the foundation for a refined aesthetic focused on simple cuts and geometric lines. Those dresses, created by translating an idea from a picture into a garment, will later completely change the relationship between fashion and art. And Saint Laurent himself considered the new dress to be the result of his desire to create dresses composed of colors, not just cut lines. And he didn`t only do that, but leaving rigid fashion, he developed a style that suits the active woman on the move, an association with gender equality.
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – about how a work of art became a breakthrough in fashion design.
Here, we can see the sketch of all the designs related to our theme. As aimed for the autumn and winter, cocktail dress sets have been created, each with a matching coat, a total of 12 pieces. There are also samples of the required fabrics with quality marks.
The Collection was a huge success. Six ultra-modern cocktail dresses caused quite a stir. The press highly praised the modernist design of the dress. Since it suits all ages, styles, and occasions, they predicted great popularity of the dress.
Paris Vogue also celebrated the innovative design on the cover of its September/`65 issue.
Yves Saint Laurent dressed modern women in Mondrian`s painted abstraction. David Bailey, in the frame, presented a new, aggressive, dynamic woman of the time. Iconic Mondrian Dress rose from Yves Saint Lauren’s last moment idea, to become one of fashion’s most storied designs. Now, continues as on catwalks, as in youthful clothing.
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – Iconic Mondrian Dress, a last-minute idea, among the most storied fashion designs.
Saint Laurent maintained his dialogue with art beginning with a series of dresses paying tribute to Piet Mondrian in August 1965. Its explosive success at the Fall/Winter show in Paris, and on the September cover of French Vogue, marked Saint Laurent’s leap forward. What is particularly interesting about Mondrian’s dress is that it was the author’s intuition and was a last-minute addition. And that intuition brought something great.
As passionate about all the arts, especially painting, Saint Laurent always engaged in an expressive dialogue in art. He believed that clothes can also be a work of art. That’s why, drawing ideas from art, he created collections that were contemporary and innovative, bringing artistic and cultural themes to a wider audience, such as: Pop Art Line 1966, in honor of Andy Warhol; Operas and Russian ballets”, 1976; “Homage to Picasso and Diaghilev” 1979; ensemble “Romanian Blouse” 1981, is a wearable interpretation of Matisse’s painting “Romanian Blouse”; Van Gogh’s “Irises” and “Sunflowers” in the 1988 collection.
Hommage to Piet Mondrian, Fall-Winter 1965 Haute Couture Collection
We can say that the work of Yves Saint Laurent, in which he confronts the ideas of the leading artists of modernism, significantly contributes to the popularization of the Dutch painter, who was not widely known at the time. And the success of the futuristic dress puts the painter’s work in the spotlight. Mondrian, who died in 1944, was previously rarely represented in French art collections. Full attention followed, and the first retrospective was organized in Paris in 1969.
Certainly, Mondrian’s “Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow”, a century after its creation, and Saint Laurent’s Mondrian Dress, sixty years old, are equally key examples of artistic “purity” and dynamic balance.
1965 Collection celebrated modern art and amazing tailoring skills.
With the Homage to Mondrian, 1965. Collection, Saint Laurent celebrated modern art and demonstrated amazing tailoring skills. He constructs a straight dress by fitting special pieces of jersey, but with invisible seams, he creates the illusion of perfect Mondrian geometry. This made the woman’s body tuck in and hide her curves, fitting seamlessly within the subtle network of stitches. Behind the visual effect of the dress, a closer look will reveal a layered story. Let’s see how innovative the material is. The designer used woolen jersey because it is heavy enough to support the designed geometricism of the model. Ornamentation seems to be printed from afar, but it is not; it is cut and sewn from special pieces.
But over time, Saint Laurent moved away from Mondrian’s anti-commercialism. Somewhere along the way, such regard for the ideas of Mondrian fades, either with time or with popularity—maybe a mixture of both. He adheres to the charm of the feminine silhouette, with black stripes that flatter the elegance of the female figure and follow the breast shape. Finally, with clothing, the designer favors the subtle emphasis of the body over the original neoplasticism’s inspiration. Saint Laurent admired Mondrian; he even said clearly, “Mondrian is purity, and you can’t go any further than that in painting. It is a purity that the Bauhaus also consistently followed. The masterpiece of the twentieth century is Mondrian.”
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – “I hate Mondrian now.”
Mondrian’s dresses have been described as a canvas on which Saint Laurent experimented with his artistic ideas and clothing in the spirit of the age. As fashion icons in 1965, the dresses were described as a new perspective of haute couture. Mondrian’s collection was widely praised. Especially because of the cover of Vogue in 1965, she became famous. Mondrian’s dress has become one of the most copied and reproduced garments in fashion history. Thus, during the height of his success, a disappointed Saint Laurent used to say, “Now I hate Mondrian.”
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – Sketch of a costume for Phoebus in the ballet Notre-Dame de Paris.
In his career, Saint Laurent created costumes for movies, musicals, ballets, and one was related to Mondrian’s collection. When choreographer Roland Petit was preparing the ballet Notre Dame in Paris for December 1965, the designer ran his Mondrian collection. Petit liked it and wanted the young creator to make his Notre Dame an avant-garde adaptation of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece.
In 2021, on the occasion of the European Heritage Day, the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris organized the exhibition “IV SAINT LAURENT-FORMS”. The setting included two costume sketches for the Notre-Dame Ballet in Paris, which the designer created for the performance of this ballet, choreographed by Roland Petit, which premiered at Palais Garnier on December 11, 1965. Two dancers’ costumes that Yves Saint Laurent created in 1965. and reproduced for this new staging in 2021.
Phoebus’s costume, and those of the soldiers. The designer drew inspiration from his Mondrian haute couture collection. But, for the stage, replace the jersey fabric with transparent tulle and the black lines with vinyl. Geometric design, bold colors, and black lines meant to evoke the stained-glass windows of the Paris Cathedral.
Here is the photo from 1965. Yves Saint Laurent with the interpreters of the roles of Phoebus and Esmeralda, behind the scenes.
We can see Phoebus’s costume, adapted from Mondrian’s dress, as a transparent leotard. For the stage, Saint Laurent replaced the jersey fabric with transparent tulle and the black lines with vinyl. Geometric design, bold colors, and black lines meant to evoke the stained-glass windows of the Paris Cathedral.
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – drawing inspiration from futuristic dress in 1965.
As the Mondrian motif has evolved and become a classic, its influence has grown and spread. In Spring/Summer Collection 1980, Saint Laurent relaunched it. Study sketch no. 13, the typical Yves Saint Laurent manner, with detailed instructions and fabric samples included. Female set, white jacket with black wool gabardine skirt. A striking piece is a white linen Mondrian jacket with a replica of an abstract composition.
White Mondrian linen jacket and black woolen gabardine skirt. Yves Saint-Laurent, study sketch No. 13, with fabric swatches.
In 1980, Yves Saint Laurent interpreted one of his previous successes. A tribute to Piet Mondrian (Inspiration from Michel Seuphor’s 1956 book, Piet Mondrian: His Life and His Work). The couturier once again transformed the painter’s creations into wearable art.
Spring/Summer 1980 haute couture collection, seen here, “he reprised this elegant aesthetic in a skirt suit, emphasizing the simplicity of the cut, the geometry of the lines, and the clarity of the primary colors.”
The model is Mounia Orosemane (who was the first Black model to walk the runway for YSL).
Mondrian`s paint Laurent`s dress – Mondrian’s modernist masterpiece extends into the surrounding space.
Everybody knows very well that Laurent wasn’t the only one drawing inspiration from Mondrian. Italian couturier Francesco Maria Bandini interprets YSL and extends Mondrian’s modernist masterpiece into the 3-rd dimension. In 1991, he held a show devoted to neoplasticism (the term used by Mondrian to describe his abstract art).
Futuristic Mondrian models by Francesco Maria Bandini, clothing forms that spread across outer space. Three models from the designer’s spring/summer 1991 collection.
“The style” was an art movement, originating in the Netherlands, embracing pure simplicity to convey universal harmony, which has inspired art designs. Among the typical is the YSL Mondrian dress, which inspired Christian Louboutin’s Wedge color-blocking sandals Mondriana, holding the legacy of Mondrian.
The bold simplicity of Piet Mondrian’s abstract style with clean lines and primary colours, redefined the art world in the 20th Century. This innovative and distinctive style not only remained in galleries and museums but crossed over into the realm of design, particularly fashion. A significant intersection of Mondrian and Fashion was Yves Saint Laurent’s shift dress, which directly mirrored Mondrian’s artwork. Saint Laurent’s dress was a sensation, but the design’s influence continued in the world of fashion, extending beyond clothing to accessories and jewellery design… Moreover, nowadays, echoes of Mondrian’s style are in various forms of visual culture, from the geometric patterns on canvas prints to the minimalist aesthetics of modern home decor. Even in the digital age, in graphic and web design.
Neoplasticism, from cult status to mass reproduction.
We can say that talking about inspiration often involves avoiding the fact of copying. But, according to the theory of Neoplasticism, having an idea is incompatible with mass marketing. Because replicas (branded gowns, t-shirts, shoes…) serve to satisfy customers. Because masses, consuming the copy, may absorb the glow of the artwork into themselves, reproduction affects the cultural value of the original object.
In conclusion, Piet Mondrian’s geometric style influences many design areas. As a timeless classic, it endures, inspiring designers in ways that continue to celebrate his artistic vision. So, while his canvases may be enjoyed in museums, his influence can be seen on runways and in wardrobes, proving that art is not just something to observe but also to live.
But when remembering Saint Laurent’s “I hate Mondrian now!” Can we understand him? And to consider the remark “Mondrian’s madness in furniture, shoes, home decor, and more.” Are the diluted symbols of a much larger idea really inspiration? Perhaps we could solve the dilemma in the title for ourselves — Are we rather impressed by the work of art or by the copies intended for our enjoyment?
Sincerely, Branka on Textiles
