Yves Saint Laurent: Style is Eternal, Institut Francais

To welcome the first ever UK exhibition of Yves Saint Laurent at The Bowes Museum, County Durham, (opening on July 11), the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni is hosting a panel discussion, Yves Saint Laurent: A Fashion Revolutionary, chaired by Meredith Etherington-Smith, Christie's Magazine editor and author, Luke Leitch, fashion critic, and Joanna Hashagen, Curator of Fashion and Textiles at The Bowes Museum. 
For many, designer Yves Saint Laurent needs no introduction, famous as the talented, tortured designer who became head of fashion at Christian Dior at the tender age of only 21. He is renowned for his tuxedos for women, launched under his own fashion label that he set up in 1966, and so brilliant that he was the first living designer to receive a solo exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983. 
"The most consistently celebrated and influential designer of the past twenty-five years, Yves Saint Laurent can be credited with both spurring the couture's rise from its sixties ashes and with finally rendering ready-to-wear reputable," wrote fashion writer Caroline Rennolds Milbank in 1985. 
Celebrate and learn about the life of designer Yves Saint Laurent, and discover everything about the Saint Laurent exhibition in The Bowes Museum, with over fifty garments including iconic pieces from the Russian Collection, the Mondrian dress and the Tuxedo. Visitors to the Institut Français can also watch a screening of Yves Saint Laurent movie by Jalil Lespert at 8.30pm (in English).