Circa 1976 - 1978
France

Raven black cut velvet coat jacket by Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche from the Ballets Russes Opera Collection dating from 1976. Fitted with an officer's collar, long sleeves and black plastic buttons with black cord piping. Skirted effect from the waist to the hips, emphasised by ribbons of black trimmings and echoed on the collar, cuffs, shoulders and bust. Fully lined in black cotton with the famous Saint Laurent Rive Gauche Paris Made in France label. No flaws to report. Very good colour and condition.

Dimensions : Equivalent size 35/36 France. Height 77 cm, Shoulders 38 cm, Sleeves 65 cm, Chest 84 cm, Waist 72 cm, Hips 102 cm.

Extract from the website of the Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Paris

The ‘Opera - Ballets Russes’ collection, which was the first to be shown at the Inter-Continental Hotel, was a real show.  An admirer of the Ballets Russes founded by Serge de Diaghilev at the turn of the century, the costumes of Léon Bakst and the paintings of Orientalist artists, Yves Saint Laurent simultaneously evoked the Russia of the Tsars and that of the Opera. The colours were shimmering and the textiles luxurious: furs, muslins, silks, velvets, gold lamé, and so on. Yves Saint Laurent restored haute couture's ability to inspire.    

Yves Saint Laurent said in Vogue, September 1976.

It's a painter's collection, inspired by Delacroix's odalisques, Ingres's women, Van Eyck's Woman with a Pearl [in fact, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl], La Tour, Rembrandt, Degas's dancers with their black corselet, but also by Senso's Visconti, the Civil War, Sternberg's Marlene. It's extremely egotistical because I've exhibited a lot more than dresses, everything I love in painting. For the day, everything is based on traditional cuts from Russia, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Morocco. That's where the naivety of the cut comes from, which makes it youthful, along with the colour.