Retro YSL Rive Gauche Skirt help

T

twolittlebeauties

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I am sure some of you also frequent the e-bay boards, so you may have already looked at this topic over there.

I have picked up a retro (80's or so) YSL rive Gauche wool skirt. the only problem, the label says Made in US.

My question is, does anyone know when YSL did a licensed line of womens clothing.

Here are the fact that I know from various research points:

YSL did a licensed menswear line in the 70's - 80's time frame. they also did a sportwear line in the early 90's by Bidermann Group. I can not find any info on the licensing of a women's wear line?

The majority opinion over on e-bay is that if this were a faksed YSL Rive Gauche skirt, the label would read Made in France, not Made in US.

So, as a last ditch effort here, I am asking for anyone's knowledge in this matter!

I hope I can post this link to the other thread on this as it has great information and the photos of the skirt.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Clothing-Shoes-Accessories/Ysl-Rive-Gauche/520176329&start=15

Thanks in advance for any information you might have!
 
Stylistically, the skirt looks early-mid 70s to me - part of his ethnic-influenced collections typical of the 1970s. YSL has always been vague about the origins and exact introduction, separation and designs fo Rives Gauche and couture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I think the vagueness is likely on purpose because French couture nearly died at the time, but for YSL due to his brilliant marketing, accessibility, and spot on collections that appealed to the modern fashion conscious woman, not to penniless hippies who wore tie-dye and jeans, or society matrons in their five year old Chanels. He also circum-navigated around the rules of couture with his ideas for couture showing up in Rives Gauche (rtw) collections the same season or a season or two later.

I suspect there were many experimentations with licensed products in the early 70s and this skirt, which looks to me like a YSL design ,but with less than stellar finishing techniques, could be an example of the same story that happened at Vuitton who briefly manufactured in the U.S. but stopped after it was realized the quality of the product was not up to their standards.

Apart from this, faking a YSL Rives Gauches skirt in the early 70s doesn't make anybody any money. Faking highly desirable scarves and purses by having knock-offs made in low labour-cost countries is one thing but a high labout cost rtw skirt? The knock-off would have to be sold close to the real skirt's price.

I think its real, I think the style is great, the finishing poor, but there is no reason to think this is anything other than an experimentation with U.S. production for rtw YSL in c. 1973, probably to avoid expensive transportation costs and importation taxes. I don't have any evidence to support that idea but there isn't any evidence to the contrary either.
 
I don't have any specific knowledge about this label, and Jonathan knows a whole lot more than I do! But I totally agree that this skirt, even if not made as well as the French label, is awfully labor intensive and detailed to be a knock-off made for profit!
 
I found a 1987 NYT article about the YSL Boutique that says:

"The Madison Avenue boutique will carry only some items from Variations, the less expensive Saint Laurent line of ready-to-wear, now designed by Dik Brandsma. And where there are competing French and American licensed products, Miss Henderiks, who buys for the New York store, said she would favor the French goods."
 
Thank you all for your information. I now feel as though I can list this without any issues!!

I appreciate your knowledge and work on this!
 
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