西部落：纪念大师圣罗兰（在线收听）

CNN's Hala Gorani talks with fashion designer Alber Elbaz about the late Yves St. Laurent.

A wonderful man. You know, I was hired by him, it was a myth. I mean the name Yves St. Laurent, the address of new Melzo, was more of a dream. And then you'll see a person, then you'll see eye glasses, and then you'll see the color of his eyes. Then you go into his soul, and you find out that he was a very, I mean it’s very difficult for me to say he was rather than he is. You know, when I think out that his creation, his work would stay with us, you know, he will never die. That’s the adventure (a tongue-slip by the interviewee, here it should be advantage) of being an artist, you’ll never die, you’ll stay forever. And he will.

And especially Yves St. Laurent has legacy, lives to this day in the way women all over the world dress.

I was asked today whether, what do I think, did he do more for women or more for fashion. And I think he did a lot for both. He did a lot for fashion, and he did a lot for women. He changed the way they dress, in a way he changed the way they think. He brought beauty back to their life and modernity. Actually one time when I was hired by Mr. Belgee, he told me that he thought that Miss Coco Chanel, liberated women and Mr. St. Laurent gave them power and strength. And I thought that he gave them beauty and he gave them a lot of power by giving them that wardrobe that he did. He was the one that invented the ready to where he translated his couture show or so, into, er, ready to a business he was extremely smart, extremely sensitive, extremely, extremely, extremely wonderful man.

And, and what gave him that vision, do you think, what about his creative genius, if you wanna call it that, what about his personality as a human being gave him that kind of vision that to this day lives on, do you think?

I think life did it to him, he was extremely sensitive. He was like a spongy got everything. He saw people, he lived with them, he got them, he went into them, he understood women, he loved women. He worked with women, for women and they loved him back.

And you knew him, what gave him these ideas, I mean, when you think of the trouser suit or when you think of the safari jacket or when you think of things that we see today on runways and take for granted as having existed for decades when in fact they were born with him.

He actually was the one that introduced different elements into fashion, like art, like music, like street life, like movement in life. So he really brought fashion high, fashion to the street and brought it back from the street up to the runway. Em in that sense, I think that he was a very unique man. Coz' he was a pioneer, he was the first one. So he get the credit for doing all of the above.

Now you are with Lanvin, now you are a celebrated designer, very much admired all over the world for having revived the oldest existing fashion house. (Alright) What did you think when you heard of the news yesterday that Yves St. Laurent died, what crossed your mind.

Oh, my god. That I have to chill. I was very, very sad. You know, I went to the house of St. Laurent and I felt more like a son-in-law than a designer that was hired, I felt kinda I marry his daughter and he is my father-in-law. So it feels like somehow a death in my family.