As the incomparable Yves Saint Laurent celebrates his 40th anniversary as a coutourier, the world salutes his genius.

By JULIE K.L. DAM /PARIS

ne of the most widely-known pictures of Yves Saint Laurent was taken just after his first collection for the House of Dior, in January 1958. He is seen leaning out of a balcony, staring calmly into the lens, while photographers around him strain for a shot. Christian Dior, the great French couturier who brought fashion out of the deprivations of World War II with the New Look, had died suddenly three months before, and Saint Laurent, his protege, was tapped to take over the house. The confident Trapeze Line that he showed brought some members of the audience to tears, and the newspaper headlines the next day proclaimed that Saint Laurent had "saved France." He was just 21 years old.

Starting at such dizzying heights, Saint Laurent's star inevitably rose and fell as often as did hemlines in the 40 years since. Fashion is notoriously fickle, but has there been any other designer who has made as many comebacks as he? Just two years after his Dior debut, negative reaction to his controversial Beat Look collection led his employers to replace him while he suffered a breakdown as an army conscript. He would recover and launch his own couture line in 1962. But the ups and downs seemed never to end. To wit: in 1971, TIME headlined its review of his 1940s-inspired designs "Yves Saint Debacle," only to laud his revolutionary "Ballets Russes" collection five years later as "The New New Look." At the same time, the Algerian-born Saint Laurent's health fluctuated; triumphant shows were followed by nervous and physical exhaustion and increasingly long breaks at his home in Marrakesh.

For the man who Pierre Berge, his longtime business partner, once said was "born with a nervous breakdown," it is nothing short of remarkable that he is celebrating his 40th anniversary as a couturier. "I do feel very emotional," Saint Laurent said at his couture show in January. "I am amazed, even quite astounded, that I could have lasted so long in fashion, and that people still love me." And yet there is more than longevity to celebrate.

Today, the YSL label may be most popular with ladies who lunch, but Saint Laurent spent much of his career on the cutting edge. "The most important thing for Saint Laurent," says Berge, "is not to follow or precede, but to always be of his time. Not in the past, not in the future, just at the right place." Indeed, the YSL archives are not unlike a social history of the second half of the 20th century. In 1960, his last collection for Dior--bubble skirts, turtlenecks and biker jackets in luxury fabrics--ushered in the turbulent decade alongside the Beat-generation writers and intellectuals who were filling Left Bank cafes. In 1966, he opened Rive Gauche, the first ready-to-wear boutique associated with a couture house. Inside were rails of dresses inspired by the Pop artists of the day. YSL's Opium perfume, launched in 1977 with a provocative ad campaign starring Jerry Hall, encapsulated the sex, drugs and rock-'n'-roll lifestyle of the habitues of the newly-opened Studio 54 disco in Manhattan. The opulence of coats hand-beaded with Van Gogh irises or sunflowers matched the boom times of the mid-1980s. In 1996, Yves Saint Laurent took fashion into the digital age by broadcasting his haute couture show live on the Internet.

Saint Laurent's signature pieces--the smokings, pantsuits, safari wear--have become staples in fashion. The androgynous look that he returned to again and again over the years found its way into recent collections from design houses such as Gucci and Prada.

Many of the designers who followed Yves Saint Laurent readily acknowledge his influence on their careers. From Christian Lacroix to Jean Colonna, they paid tribute to him in a book published in conjunction with a photographic exhibition put on in New York earlier this year. Marc Jacobs, the hip New Yorker who is creative director for Louis Vuitton, recalled that seeing people dressed in YSL in the 1970s inspired him to pursue a career in fashion. "Saint Laurent's fashion," he says, "no longer provokes a shock of novelty, but Yves Saint Laurent knows not only how to create but also how to maintain."

Others tested the saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In 1994 YSL sued Ralph Lauren over a tuxedo dress that seemed too similar to a 1970 YSL design and won substantial damages.

But it can equally be said that every trouser suit that is designed for women owes its existence to Saint Laurent. Before him, a woman wearing pants was a scandal; now, what fashionable woman doesn't own a pantsuit? "He put trousers into a woman's wardrobe and made our lives easier," said Paloma Picasso. "Chanel gave liberation of the body to women," says Berge, "and Saint Laurent gave power to women with the men's clothes."

This anniversary year has been celebrated in a rather low-key way, with the introduction of a new fragrance and the opening of a room in London's National Gallery, bearing his name and containing French art. Only the blockbuster fashion show in the Stade de France before the World Cup final--which cost more than $4 million to stage and had a TV and live audience of a billion--was commensurate with Saint Laurent's achievements. He even made a rare public appearance at the final, watching his life in fashion pass by on the pitch and singing along with the French football supporters. As odd a combination as it seemed--300 models parading in front of bewildered football fans--the show was just another example of what Saint Laurent has done for 40 years: bringing together the male and female, the high culture and the pop culture, "the shock of the two worlds," as Berge puts it.

Retrospectives, of course, have a way of being introspective. A picture of a 21-year-old Saint Laurent, juxtaposed with the image of the frail man today, reminds us that nothing lasts forever. The question raised in our minds--What happens after Yves?--seems to have been addressed behind the scenes as well. In June, the company announced that Moroccan-born Alber Elbaz, currently at Guy Laroche, would be taking over the ready-to-wear designing at the end of the year, allowing Saint Laurent to concentrate on the haute couture. It is an important shift, although the company had discontinued the high-profile catwalk shows for Rive Gauche in 1996 (opting instead for small shows by appointment), and it is an open secret in the fashion world that Saint Laurent has not personally designed that line in years.

The more pressing concern is what will happen with the couture. Unlike Dior, Saint Laurent has no protege waiting in the wings. And under the terms of the deal in which the French conglomerate Elf-Sanofi purchased Yves Saint Laurent in 1993, Berge will give up control of the fashion business at the end of 2001, while Saint Laurent has the option to stay until 2016, the year of his 80th birthday. "The day when Mr. Yves Saint Laurent decides to give up the haute couture, I will close the couture department immediately," Berge says emphatically. "After 2001, it will be [Elf-Sanofi's] decision; before that it is mine. I think really Yves Saint Laurent will decide by himself what to do, but my recommendation is to think about that before 2002." He adds, quietly, "I cannot imagine Yves Saint Laurent in that house without me."

A worse prospect is a situation similar to that at the House of Givenchy. When asked about Hubert de Givenchy's loss of control over the couture house bearing his name--and his obvious disapproval of the choices of British designers John Galliano and then Alexander McQueen to replace him--Berge simply says that it is "very, very sad."

If the World Cup show celebrated the scope of Saint Laurent's 40 years in fashion with 300 of his most remarkable pieces, then the fall/winter couture collection presented in Paris last week managed to bottle the pure essence of Saint Laurent into 71 quintessentially elegant outfits. All the signatures--smart pantsuits, tuxedoes, see-through mousseline blouses, belted jackets, elegant sheath gowns in lace or satin--reappeared. These clothes could have been worn 20 years ago--not that they seemed out of date, but rather that they achieved the true meaning of the words timeless and classic.

Another enduring image of Saint Laurent: making his customary walk down the runway at the end of the show, he seemed genuinely moved by the standing ovation from an audience that included actress Catherine Deneuve and designer Jean Paul Gaultier. Slowly, he made his way back again, stopping to receive kisses from each of his models and pose for more cameras, finally exiting backstage. If this is one of the last collections we will see from Saint Laurent, then the pleasure has been ours. Bravo, Yves, bravo.

--With Reporting by Bruce Crumley /Paris