Iconic PFW Show: YSL At The World Cup Final In 1998
365 days of fashion: the e-ncyclopedia of fashion
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
On this last day of Paris Fashion Week, which also closes the Fall 2024 Fashion Month season, let’s remember an iconic fashion show in the history of PFW: Saint Laurent’s runway in the summer of 1998.
July 12, 1998, is widely remembered as the day when France won the FIFA World Cup against Brazil. But there was another memorable event that day. For 15 minutes, Stade de France transformed into a huge catwalk conceived by Yves Saint Laurent.
Staged in celebration of the founder’s 40 years of creative work (he started working for Dior in 1955 and founded his eponymous house in 1961, remember?), it was the largest fashion show in history, presented before 80,000 spectators and an estimated television audience of 1.7 billion.
The numbers of this show are beyond impressive. The fifteen-minute event required 900 people to help organize the event. "I want this show to make people dream — but I would also like them to understand how much work it represents," Yves Saint Laurent once said.
The couturier invited 300 models,